


Whatever It Takes to Keep the Body Warm

by natsinator



Series: A Wheel Inside a Wheel [5]
Category: Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Canon-Typical Violence, Imperial!Yang, Love Triangles, M/M, Strategy & Tactics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25123177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natsinator/pseuds/natsinator
Summary: “I’m going to Kapche-Lanka,” Reuenthal finally said. “There’s going to be a ground campaign there, to try to retake some of the bases that were overrun a few years ago.”Yang took a sip of his beer. “How interesting.”“I’ll have a battalion of my own,” Reuenthal said.“Congratulations,” Yang said. He had an odd expression on his face, one that Reuenthal couldn’t quite parse.-----------------This side story is part of a longer roleswap AU. It takes place in 484/485 IC, between chapters 16 and 17 of Servants of the Pharaoh . It concerns Mittermeyer and Reuenthal on Kapche-Lanka. You should probably read at least Part One (Speaking in Tongues) and Part Three (Servants of the Pharaoh) up to chapter 16 before reading this story. Tags will be updated as chapters are posted. OVA canon is respected in the way that one might respect the speed limit on your local highway.
Relationships: Oskar von Reuenthal/Yang Wenli, Wolfgang Mittermeyer/Oskar von Reuenthal
Series: A Wheel Inside a Wheel [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1650067
Comments: 48
Kudos: 28





	1. Love ->  Building on Fire

_ November 484 IC, Odin _

“I was starting to worry that you weren’t coming,” Reuenthal said, smiling at Yang as he slid into the booth across from him in the bar. Reuenthal hadn’t actually been worried that Yang wasn’t going to show up, but he had been wondering when that would be.

“And not celebrate your long overdue promotion? It would be criminal of me.” He took off his hat and gloves, then shrugged off his jacket, tossing the whole wet bundle onto the seat beside him. “Train was delayed because of the snow.”

“Oh?”

“For the first snow of the year, it’s a heavy one.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have dragged you all the way out to the capital. You’ll be stranded here, instead of being able to go home to your own warm bed.” Reuenthal was smiling, and Yang laughed.

“It’s not so warm when I haven’t been home to light the fire. Besides, it’s no imposition to come out here.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“You should be pleased,” Yang said. Reuenthal watched as Yang curled himself up on the bench in a way that Reuenthal could not imagine was comfortable, one foot tucked underneath himself, his other knee up near his chin.

“And why is that?”

“Because you, of all people, have managed to overcome my laziness.” Yang’s smile was wide, and his tone was a familiar, joking one. 

“If only that accomplishment was what earned me my promotion,” Reuenthal said. The waitress came over and they both ordered drinks. When she returned, Yang raised his beer in a toast.

“To Commander Oskar von Reuenthal! Prosit!”

They knocked their glasses together and drank. “You’re not unhappy that I’ve caught up to you?”

Yang snorted into his beer. “Not in the least. I look forward to the day you make captain, and I remain a commander. It will be as though the galaxy has returned to spinning in the correct direction.”

“You’re not looking to be promoted?”

“I’m certain that I won’t be, unless I leave the IOA, which I have no intention of doing.”

Reuenthal shook his head, even though he had many things to say about the trajectory of Yang’s career. Yang offered him a smile when he saw the slightly bitter twist of Reuenthal’s lips. “If you fall too far behind, we’ll no longer be number one and number two, and that would be a shame,” Reuenthal finally said, which he considered to be the least inflammatory thing that he could.

Yang laughed. “If I left the IOA, we wouldn’t be able to see each other nearly as much. It’s nice that we’re both working near the capital.”

Reuenthal swirled his beer around in his glass for a second. “You understand that a promotion means a change in post.”

“I was hoping you weren’t going to say that. I assume you’re not just being shuffled around within the Ministry of War?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Alright, tell me where you’re going. You don’t need to draw out the suspense.”

“Don’t I?”

“I think you’ll be more pleased by my wailing and gnashing of teeth when you tell me you’re going half the galaxy away than you will be by making me play twenty questions. You might as well just get on with it.”

“Wailing and gnashing of teeth? Are you going to rend your garments while you’re at it?”

“Mmm, maybe not in this bar,” Yang said with a smile. “It would be unseemly.”

“Oh, then you’re saying I should save the news for when we’re in a more private setting?” 

“I’m going home after this,” Yang said, which they both knew was a complete lie. “So you’ll have to tell me the news now.”

“Only if the weather magically clears up enough for the trains to run.”

“I’m sure it will,” Yang said. He was smiling, though. “Come on, tell me. Are you getting a ship of your own? Doing some dreadfully boring supply run?”

“I’m not sure if it’s fortunate or unfortunate to say the answer is no,” Reuenthal said. “I suspect my new posting will be anything but boring, but it’s not on a ship.”

“You are killing me with the suspense.”

“I’m going to Kapche-Lanka,” Reuenthal finally said. “There’s going to be a ground campaign there, to try to retake some of the bases that were overrun a few years ago.”

Yang took a sip of his beer. “How interesting.”

“I’ll have a battalion of my own,” Reuenthal said.

“Congratulations,” Yang said. He had an odd expression on his face, one that Reuenthal couldn’t quite parse.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Lots of things,” Yang said.

“Such as?”

Yang smiled. “Do you remember-- our first SW practicum match?”

“I could hardly forget it. I do recall you beat me.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Yang said. “I didn’t accomplish my objective.”

“A tie, then.”

“I wouldn’t give myself a passing grade for that one,” Yang said with a laugh. “I suppose I could go back and look at our old postmortems.”

“I’m not sure that would do either of us any good.”

“Why, you don’t think SW class has adequately prepared you to start waging a ground war? Should I recall you and put you back in my class, to duke it out with my cadets?”

Reuenthal chuckled. “I don’t think it would be much of a competition.”

“No, probably not. Though I do have a few talented students.” Some of the humor that was in Yang’s voice fell away. “I do think that’s just as stupid of an objective as it was back then.”

“If you rise through the ranks high enough to become someone who chooses the objectives--”

Yang waved his hand. “I’ll let you do that for me. I trust you to have good judgement about that sort of thing.”

“Do you indeed?”

“You were always better at grand strategy than I was,” he said with a bit of a wry smile. “I’m only at my best when I’m backed into a corner. That’s not the type of person you want at the front, giving orders.”

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Reuenthal said. “But neither of us are right now in a position to tell Fleet Admiral Muckenburger that we should stop contesting that barely-habitable chunk of rock.”

Yang laughed a little. “I’ve certainly told him stupider things.”

“I’m well aware.” Reuenthal studied Yang while he looked away, out the dim front window of the bar where thick flurries of snow were dancing in the light from the sign and streetlights. Yang’s face was soft, in the muted yellow and blue bar lights, with only the slight pinch of his lips betraying that he was still thinking about something. “Are you unhappy that I’m leaving?” Reuenthal asked, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

“Of course,” Yang said, looking up at him. “But I assume it won’t be for too long. A few months, at most. It’s not like you’re being given command of one of the bases-- that would be a more permanent position.”

“That’s true. I expect I will be back on Odin once this little campaign is over. You just look like you’re thinking about something.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Yang said. He was not a very good liar, and this was an obvious lie to Reuenthal’s ears. Reuenthal didn’t press it for the moment. It might be something that Yang wanted to address privately. Yang switched the topic. “Are you prepared for the cold?”

Reuenthal shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me.”

“I must admit that I’m glad I’m not being assigned there. I don’t think I’d survive.”

Reuenthal chuckled a little. “You haven’t been keeping up your practice with an axe while teaching? Perhaps it’s you who needs remedial lessons.”

“I told you once that if I was engaging in hand to hand combat, the battle was already lost. That has not changed at all.” Yang shook his head. “You’ll be fine, though.”

“I’m sure.” Reuenthal took a sip of his beer. “I think, on this occasion, I’m more worried about the commander behind me than the enemy in front of me.”

“Who’s leading the operation?”

“High Admiral Ovlesser.”

Yang made a face. “I suppose I’m not surprised. Ground combat and all.”

“Have you met him?”

“No, but I know him by reputation. I studied some of his engagements while I was working in the PI unit.”

“Any wisdom you can impart?”

“Not really,” Yang said. “Don’t get yourself into a situation where he needs to call a retreat, because he won’t call one.”

“I’m not sure how he has survived to the rank that he has without understanding the tactical value of retreating.”

“I’m sure he understands, but…” Yang fiddled with his napkin. “He’s not stupid. He knows that if he cultivates this reputation, he’ll be able to push people past their limits. I don’t like it as a strategy, but it’s worked for him.”

“Perhaps."

“You probably won’t have to interact with him directly,” Yang said. He leaned forward a little. “Do you have any idea what precisely you’re doing? I’d like to see what the strategy is.”

“So you can use it as teaching material for your students?”

“Sometimes I think we should try a kind of monkeys-at-computers approach to strategy. Just have all of the cadets start randomly trying things, and statistically speaking one of them will have to come up with a good plan.”

Reuenthal laughed. “I’m glad I am not trusting myself to some cadet’s plan. But no, I don’t have any information on it, and I couldn’t give it to you, even if I did. You’ll just have to hear how it all works out when I get back.”

“I look forward to it. When are you leaving?”

“Early next month. Before the solstice. I should put all my things into storage and break my lease.”

“You don’t have to get a storage unit,” Yang said. “You’re welcome to put your stuff at my place.”

“No, thank you,” Reuenthal said.

“Why not? Save you money, and I’ve got plenty of room.”

“I once had an unpleasant time picking up my belongings from Mittermeyer’s house. It’s soured me on the whole concept.”

“I’m much more pleasant than Mittermeyer’s parents are,” Yang said, but he waved his hand with a smile. “Well, do what you want.”

Reuenthal smiled tightly. “Besides, what would your landladies think about me moving all my possessions into your house?”

“I don’t think they’d care, honestly, as long as you weren’t eating meals without paying for them.” He scratched the back of his head, an action that Reuenthal always found endearing. “It’s too bad about your apartment, though. It’s a nice place.”

“I’ll find another when I need to.”

“True.”

Reuenthal wanted to change the subject. “How have your students been doing?”

“Oh, the same as they ever were,” Yang said. 

They talked about inconsequential things until both of them were moderately drunk, and then Reuenthal stood and paid their tab. They wandered outside into the night, the snow still falling thick and heavy. There were several inches of it collected on the ground, and visibility was limited.

“I highly doubt the trains are running at any regular intervals,” Reunthal said. “I would hate to think of you spending the night in the train station.”

“You know, one of my talents is being able to fall asleep anywhere,” Yang said, but he craned his neck to look up and down the street, making sure there was no one around. “But I’m sure your apartment is more pleasant.”

Reuenthal’s lips curled up in a bit of a triumphant smile. “I should hope.”

“Lead the way, Commander,” Yang said. 

Yang had been joking, but when Reuenthal replied, “Yes, sir,” in a low voice, his cheeks flushed more than could be accounted for by the snow-filled air.

They walked together towards Reuenthal’s apartment, a decent distance away. Their progress was slow, from the snow on the ground, and they eschewed the most direct route in favor of the most plowed one, which took them through more of the main streets.

Although every sound was muted, in the way that falling snow tended to muffle things, there were an unusual number of sirens sounding, especially for this late at night. At one point on their walk, a fire truck rushed past them, nearly causing Yang to fall into the street. Reuenthal gripped his elbow tightly.

“What’s going on, you think?” Yang asked.

“Shall we investigate?”

“Gods, no,” Yang said. “I’m freezing.”

Reuenthal raised his eyebrows. “Your curiosity isn’t warming you up?”

“It’s sobering me up, which I don’t appreciate,” Yang said. “Come on.” He tugged Reuenthal’s sleeve and they continued forward. Their path brought them closer to the sirens, though, and they became aware of an odd smell in the air-- acrid, burning-- and some of the snowflakes that Reuenthal saw landing on Yang’s face were a filthy grey. Reuenthal reached out and swiped some off of Yang’s nose, investigating the sooty smudge that was left on his finger.

“Something’s on fire,” Reuenthal said, though it was stating the obvious.

They both looked up at the sky, where an odd, reddish glow was illuminating the clouds behind the buildings, making them just barely visible as looming black shadows.

“Are you really going to make me go look at it?” Yang asked.

“Does it make you that unhappy to go a little out of your way?”

Yang rolled his eyes. “I’ll live, I suppose. I did just say you had cured me of my laziness. Figures you’d go and test me on it.”

They turned in the direction of all of the sirens and walked until they came upon the scene. It was chaotic, with fire trucks crammed into the street as best they could, and spectators milling around. Yang and Reuenthal blended right in with that crowd. 

The building in question was well and truly on fire, and looked like it had been for a while. All the glass had burst out of its windows, and flames were crawling up underneath the cladding, leaving eerie traces along its outer walls, as though it was coming apart at the seams. Most of the firefighting effort was focused on keeping the adjoining buildings from also catching fire. Reuenthal could feel the heat of it on his face. It was an awesome sight, and it made him shiver a little, not because of the cold.

Yang was staring at it with an inscrutable expression on his face. “This is Amberlin Strasse, isn’t it?” 

“Yes,” Reuenthal said. Yang frowned and pulled out his phone. “Is something the matter?”

“That’s the Earth Church headquarters.”

“Is it?”

“Yes,” he said, with no further elaboration. Reuenthal leaned on Yang’s shoulder to watch him clumsily type out a message on his phone, fingers clearly stiff from the cold night air. The message was to Yang’s former CO, Commodore Bronner.

> is there a reason the earth church headquarters is on fire right now

The reply was almost immediate.

< Is there a reason you’re asking me this question?

> because i’m standing here watching it burn down

< Is there a reason you’re so far from home tonight?

Yang frowned deeply, not answering that question, and shoved his phone in his pocket. 

“ _ Is _ there a reason you’re asking him that?” Reuenthal asked. “You seem invested in this.”

“It’s stupid, don’t worry about it.”

“Is it?”

He shook his head. “I’ll tell you in a bit.” Their conversation was interrupted by a huge cracking and roaring sound, as a portion of the building’s roof gave in, sending new gouts of flame out through the broken windows. “Do we have to stand here and watch this?”

“You don’t appreciate it?” Had he been alone, Reuenthal probably would have watched the building burn for a while longer, but Yang didn’t seem to like it as much as he did. 

Yang looked at him. “I’m cold.”

“I didn’t realize you had such a delicate constitution.”

“You know, the train station is only three blocks away from here...”

Reuenthal did not dignify that with a response, and with one last glance at the fire, walked back down the street in the direction of his apartment. Yang followed after him.

When they arrived back at Reuenthal’s apartment, the removal of their wet clothing was more practical than anything else, and Reuenthal got his kettle going to make tea as Yang hopped around in the living room, pulling off his pants that were soggy up to the ankles from stepping in snow drifts. When Reuenthal brought the mugs of tea, splashed with brandy as Yang liked, back out to the living room, Yang had wrapped himself in a blanket and was sitting on the couch sideways, his chin on his knees.

“Thank you,” he said, taking his mug. “Quick cure for hypothermia.”

“You’re probably right that you wouldn’t survive on Kapche-Lanka, if you’re dying of chill just from a little walk,” Reuenthal said, leaving his own mug on the coffee table for a second as he gathered up Yang’s discarded pants and jacket from the chair that he had tossed them on, and put all of their wet clothes in the laundry. He came back out of his bedroom also just in his undershirt and boxers, then sat down next to Yang on the couch.

Yang smiled. “Good thing I’m not going there, then.”

“It would be more pleasant for me if you were.”

“I somehow doubt that,” Yang said. He paused for a moment, thinking. “If I’m going to go to the front lines, I really would prefer it be in space.”

Reuenthal nodded. “So, why were you so concerned about the Earth Church burning down?”

“Oh, you actually want to know about that?” Yang didn’t quite meet his eyes, taking a sip of his tea. “It’s… Bronner caught one of my students digging into Prince Ludwig’s assassination last summer. The Earth Church may have been involved in that whole affair.”

“Oh?”

“It was stupid of me to think that Bronner would admit to knowing if the kaiser, or somebody, had ordered the building burned.”

Reuenthal raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think that the kaiser would need to resort to arson to get his point across about the murder of his son. He could just have the whole organization arrested.”

Yang’s brow furrowed. “I suppose so.”

“Perhaps it was just an accidental fire.”

“Mmm.” He was clearly unconvinced, and he looked down into his tea with a pensive expression.

“Do you want me to tell you you’re being paranoid?”

“No,” Yang said. “I don’t think there’s anything you could say to convince me that it wasn’t arson.”

“Who else has any reason to burn down a church headquarters?”

Yang didn’t answer that question, just shrugged and sipped his tea.

“You know something, Wen-li?”

“You, of all people, should know better than to ask me questions. I have suspicions, maybe. I’m not going to follow up on them, because I don’t want to know.”Yang sighed a little and shook his head. “It’s really-- the whole thing is done. Nothing is going to bring Prince Ludwig back to life, so everyone spending their energy digging into it is…” He shrugged, looking somewhat miserable.

“That’s not usually what you say about history.”

“Let historians uncover the truth in a hundred years, then,” Yang said. “We’re all too close to it for the truth to really come out.”

“Why was your student looking into it?”

“I don’t know,” Yang said. “I didn’t ask him about it.” He seemed mostly honest, so Reuenthal nodded and finished his cup of tea, burning his mouth on it a little bit when he drank it too fast. He kicked his legs up onto the couch, worming his feet underneath the blanket that Yang had wrapped himself in. Yang squirmed a little. “You’re cold as ice,” he said when Reuenthal’s foot slid up his leg.

“Mmm,” Reuenthal agreed. He liked how soft and warm Yang was. He found the place on Yang’s thigh where there was a thick scar and let his foot rest there for a second. Yang finished his own tea, dislodging Reuenthal’s foot when he leaned down to put his mug on the coffee table. “I’ll be even colder on Kapche-Lanka, I’m sure.”

Yang shifted so that they were facing each other on the couch, and he pulled Reuenthal’s legs up onto his lap, running his hands on Reuenthal’s calves. Reuenthal tilted his head back and closed his eyes, picturing the fire that they had watched earlier, feeling an echo of the thrill that it gave him. Yang’s gentle touch on his legs intensified that feeling. “You’ll find some way to keep warm,” Yang said.

Reuenthal shook himself out of his momentary trance, getting up on his knees to lean over Yang, his hands on either side of Yang’s shoulders on the arm of the couch behind him. “Will I?” Reuenthal asked. 

Yang reached up to put his hand on the back of Reuenthal’s neck, his smile deceptively calm and relaxed. He tugged Reuenthal down towards him, and Reuenthal nestled his nose for a moment in Yang’s hair. It still smelled like smoke.

* * *

Later, Reuenthal and Yang were in bed, the muted light of a snowy night coming in through the bedroom window the only source of illumination. It was very late, and Reuenthal wasn’t sure what had woken him up until he turned towards Yang, who had his eyes open and his arms underneath his head, looking up at the ceiling.

“Can’t sleep?” Reuenthal asked, mouth dry and sticky from just waking up.

Yang jumped a little in surprise, then turned towards Reuenthal, laying on his side with his head on his arm.

“I guess,” he said.

“Still thinking about the fire?” Reuenthal had been-- it had taken up a prominent place in his dream.

“No,” Yang said. He sighed a little, a huff of breath that Reuenthal felt on his own cheek.

“What, then?”

Yang was silent for a long second. Reuenthal reached out and traced one finger along the soft line of Yang’s jaw, waiting for him to speak. “Mittermeyer’s on Kapche-Lanka.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“And this worries you?”

“No,” Yang said, shaking his head. “I just thought you should know. But you don’t like when I bring him up.”

It had been over a year since Reuenthal had last seen Mittermeyer, at his wedding, but the thought of him still caused a miserable, twisting reaction in Reuenthal’s heart. It was easy to pick out the mixture of anger and desire-- the feeling of betrayal remained strong-- but there were other things that Reuenthal never wanted to look too closely at, like peeling the flesh away from the wound to see underneath. In the quiet darkness of the bedroom, still on the edge of sleep, though, his emotions were muted. 

“I’m sure I won’t see him,” Reuenthal said. “It’s a big planet.”

“He’s been in charge of new construction,” Yang said.

“Making him put his engineering studies to use, I see,” Reuenthal said idly, which actually made Yang laugh. Mittermeyer hated engineering, despite having completed the course of it at the IOA, so Reuenthal took a bitter kind of amusement at Mittermeyer’s misfortune.

“Yeah.” There was silence for a moment. “If you do see him--” He cut himself off.

Reuenthal’s finger continued tracing its way around Yang’s jaw, up towards the hair that curled down in front of his ear. “What?”

“You should talk to him,” Yang said.

“And then what, Wen-li?”

Yang closed his eyes. “He misses you.”

“He made his choices.”

“I miss us all being able to be together,” Yang said finally, after a long moment. “You would be happier if--”

“If what?”

“If you were able to see him.”

“Are you trying to say that he’s better for me than you are?” If he had been more awake, he might have delivered this in a bitter tone, but it came out flat, a genuine question.

Yang was apparently also in the mood to be honest. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.”

“Why?” Reuenthal had never understood why Yang was so willing to step aside, when it came to his relationship with Mittermeyer, especially when he himself had had no one else. His whatever-it-was with the Baroness Westpfale did not count. Yang had spent years doing nothing but supporting Mittermeyer, doing nothing for his own sake. Reuenthal admitted to himself that he had always been rather pleased that Yang did not abandon him for anyone else-- and he had been jealous of Westpfale when that had looked like  _ something _ . But he could not understand why Yang did it-- he certainly would have never done such a thing-- and he didn’t understand now why Yang seemed so eager to push him back into Mittermeyer’s arms, something that was not going to happen.

“I spent years seeing how happy he made you,” Yang finally said. “It feels selfish and wrong for me to keep that from you.”

“I don’t think anyone could ever accuse you of being selfish. Certainly not Mittermeyer.” There was vitriol in Reuenthal’s voice.

“Oskar…”

“You are still compelled to defend him, for some reason.” Reuenthal rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. Yang could feel guilty all he wanted, but that didn’t change the fact that Mittermeyer had gone and married some woman. 

“He didn’t mean to hurt you,” Yang said.

“Hurt?” He laughed. “I’m not hurt. I simply have no desire to tiptoe around his feelings. Let him have his wife, if she makes him so happy.”

Yang was silent for a long time, and Reuenthal wondered if he had perhaps fallen asleep. He turned to look if he had. Yang was staring up at the ceiling again, but he turned his head towards Reuenthal when he felt him move.

“I did say that you didn’t like when I brought him up,” Yang said, voice a little wry.

“Hm,” Reuenthal said, which wasn’t agreement, but was intended as a concession. 

“All I’m saying is-- if you do see him-- it would give me peace of mind to think that you’re… doing what makes you happy.”

Reuenthal hooked his leg around Yang’s under the sheets. “I am.”

* * *

_ December 484 IC, Iserlohn Fortress _

On his way to Kapche-Lanka, Reuenthal made a stop at Iserlohn fortress. It was the staging area for the whole operation, where he would get to meet and integrate himself with his battalion, a newly formed group, and hear about the strategy of the operation from the high command. He had command of about six hundred men, which was approximately the same size as the crew complement of a large ship. In the grand scheme of the operation, it was almost nothing, but it was Reuenthal’s first real command, so he took to it with quiet pride and dedication. The junior officers below him seemed competent, and his NCOs had more ground combat experience than he did (none), so he relied on their expertise. His trust and consideration was reciprocated, so in the period of training that they had available to them before they deployed, Reuenthal felt that he formed a good working relationship with his team.

He didn’t have very much free time during this period, and so the one day that he was eating dinner alone in one of the many restaurants on Iserlohn, after coming out of a division-level strategy meeting, he was surprised when someone came up to him at the diner counter. “Excuse me,” the man said. “Are you Commander von Reuenthal?”

“I am,” Reuenthal said. The other man was also a commander. He had long, light-brown hair streaked with grey, and a nasally, flat voice. “Did you need something?”

“My name is Paul von Oberstein,” he said. “I believe we have a mutual… friend.” The hesitation on the last word was odd, and it distracted Reuenthal from the fact that he felt the name was familiar.

“Oh?”

“Commander Hank von Leigh said that you were on Iserlohn and wondered if I might make your acquaintance. Am I disturbing you?”

Reuenthal gestured at the empty seat next to him at the diner counter so that the other man would sit, which he did, sitting rather primly. “How do you know Leigh?”

“We met while he was on Iserlohn during his first deployment. He has since been… a great help to me.”

“In what way?” Reuenthal asked. He remembered, suddenly, who Oberstein was. “Oh, you’re the one who held Admiral Kleist at gunpoint.”

“Yes,” Oberstein said. “Leigh saved my life twice over, I believe.”

“Certainly your career, at least,” Reuenthal said, looking at Oberstein. He found him vaguely unpleasant, and he wasn’t sure what had compelled Yang to help him. “And why has Leigh told you to find me?”

“I do not know. I am happy to obey his instructions.”

“Oh?”

“They have not served me wrong thus far.”

“He is that type of man,” Reuenthal said.

“What type, Commander?”

“Extremely competent.”

“Yes. That is the case.” Oberstein paused, then said, “I have encouraged him to use his talents to advance his career, but he has no interest in that.”

Reuenthal raised an eyebrow. “You’re not the only one.”

“It would be to the universe’s benefit if he were in a better position.”

“I don’t know about the universe,” Reuenthal said, picking up his beer. “But certainly to his. It would befit him to have a higher station.”

“Indeed. I told him once that I would be happy to serve within his command.”

“Oh?” Reuenthal asked. He looked at Oberstein a little more carefully. His eyes were dull and lifeless, and his lips were pressed into a thin line.

“He would make a competent commanding officer,” Oberstein said. “Do you feel the same?”

“You’re making assumptions about me,” Reuenthal said. “He was second in our graduating class. I was first.” Reuenthal’s feelings about serving beneath Yang were complicated, and not anything that he was going to share with this stranger, who he was finding more unpleasant by the second.

Oberstein tilted his head slightly, his hair falling limp around his ears. “I did not mean to make any insinuations.”

“Of course not.”

“I simply mean that we seem to have a common goal.”

“Which is?”

“To ensure that Leigh both survives, and takes a place, as you said, more befitting to him.”

“Why do you think that is my goal?”

“He seems loyal to you, from the way he has spoken about you in his letters. I would assume that you are loyal to him as well.”

“Loyal to me?” Reuenthal asked, a slight frown on his face. 

“He is a man who goes to great lengths to help his friends, and he describes you with the highest regard. That is all.”

“Indeed.” Reuenthal took a sip of his beer. “And why is that your goal?”

“Aside from the debt that I owe him, we have similar ideals. He has the capability to realize those ideals, and I would like to help him do so.”

“What kind of ideals?”

Oberstein pursed his lips. “Dangerous ones,” he said after a second.

Reuenthal narrowed his eyes. “Dangerous ideals.” And the wrong kind of ambition, Reuenthal thought.

“He needs someone to ensure that he does not throw himself away carelessly, in service of those ideals.”

“What do you mean?”

“He could have died at El Facil,” Oberstein said, after a moment of hesitation. “And he risked his own prospects on my behalf. He has been a very lucky man, that neither of those events ended poorly. I understand that he will not listen to me, when I describe what might be necessary. He might listen to you.”

“I don’t know why you think that, Commander Oberstein,” Reuenthal said. “He is in no way obligated to listen to me. He is my friend, not my subordinate.”

“But as his friend, you have no desire to see him sacrifice himself unnecessarily.”

“And what is your definition of ‘necessary’, Commander?”

“Perhaps different from yours, and certainly different from Leigh’s. I suspect that Leigh would trade his own life for that of a single stranger, if he was seized by that impulse. I would say that even the sacrifice he almost made at El Facil would have been too great. He has the potential to be worth the lives of more people even than that.”

Reuenthal smiled grimly. “And you say this out of some kind of affection, Commander?”

“No. Mere pragmatism. He has a prescient talent that I have never seen except in history books, and the ideals to be a fair leader of men. The universe would be a better place with him in a position of power, which will not happen if he makes himself into a martyr.”

“He once told me that he had no intention of becoming a martyr,” Reuenthal said, thinking back to an SW match they had played against each other. Of course, that match had ended with Yang’s character ending the game with a suicide bombing assassination, so perhaps Yang’s own thoughts on the topic were muddled.

“Did he?”

“He should take his own advice, perhaps.” Reuenthal finished his beer. 

“Yes.” Oberstein stood. “I wish you good luck on your deployment, Commander Reuenthal.”

“Thank you,” Reuenthal said. He was glad that Oberstein was excusing himself. Even the fact that Oberstein clearly liked Yang-- and that Yang apparently liked Oberstein-- was not enough to overcome the unpleasant taste that the man was leaving in his mouth.

“I’m sure we will meet again,” Oberstein said. “Please do consider what I said.”

“I will. Until then, Commander Oberstein.”

Oberstein nodded at him, and then slipped out of the restaurant, walking stiffly with his hands behind his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> none of you people know how to communicate and it makes you all miserable
> 
> yang "martyr? no thanks. well, maybe." wenli
> 
> oskar "yes i do like it if yang has power over me but i do not like anybody else to imply that that is the case" von reuenthal 
> 
> paul "bad vibes only" von oberstein
> 
> I wonder who did some arson...questions we must all ask ourselves
> 
> I'm thinking this whole thing is only going to be a few chapters long (four?) I want to keep it pretty contained so we can get back to the main story over in SotP, which we're getting to the last quarter of. but we do have to clear up this relationship's dangling threads first haha
> 
> the chapter title is from [ this talking heads song ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olf0o3jfhns)
> 
> count 'em, one, two loves. which is my face. which is a building. which is on fire.
> 
> thank you to lydia and em for the beta read! my original fiction is @bit.ly/shadowofheaven and bit.ly/arcadispark . I'm @javert on tumblr and @natsinator on twitter. see you soon!


	2. Snow Crush Killing Song

_ December 484 IC, Kapche-Lanka _

Kapche-Lanka was a bitter wasteland, Reuenthal discovered. Photographs and written descriptions of the place did it no justice, and investigating the cold-weather supplies that his battalion had been given did not prepare him for the reality of how they would be used. 

His first experience with the planet was a poor one: the crew transport that was bringing them to the surface had to descend in the midst of a thick blizzard. They were unable to wait in orbit for the weather to clear, since Alliance destroyers took shots at them as they came into the system. Reuenthal had never before been on a spaceship that was impacted by  _ weather _ , and even the powerful gravity engine of the stardrive could do nothing to ameliorate the sickening, dipping sways of wind that pushed the ship around as it came down to land. Reuenthal had not even had the dubious pleasure of being on the bridge. He, along with his men, had been down in the crew staging area, waiting to unload themselves and all of their supplies, including the hundred and fifty tanks that were packed together so closely in the ship’s hold that one had to walk sideways between them. Reuenthal had pursed his lips and said, “The rebels may have a point, not trying to land their ships through any kind of atmosphere.” This had made a few of his NCOs chuckle, but it hadn’t been much of a joke.

And then, when they had made it to the ground, there was a controlled rush to get everything off the ship and out onto the surface of the planet. The ship itself needed to depart for elsewhere, with some purpose that Reuenthal was not privy to, so it was imperative that this all moved quickly. Reuenthal stood at the bottom of the ship’s ramp, watching all the tanks roll down and out, his adjutant carefully keeping track of everyone, and the NCOs and junior officers making sure that the process was orderly. Reuenthal gave what orders he needed to, shouting over the muffled-snow sounds and the roar of the engines of the tanks and the great, hulking transport ship above. The whole scene was illuminated among blowing drifts of snow only by the running lights of the ship, and the headlights of the tanks, which vanished into the darkness and howling wind as soon as they left the ship’s protective embrace.

Every time he took a breath, the air stabbed into his throat. The atmosphere was breathable, but thin, and with an excess of carbon dioxide that set Reuenthal’s nerves on edge right away, the body’s natural instincts sending panic signals to breathe heavily, get out. Reuenthal took steady, deep breaths, controlling the instinct but unable to quell the feeling that gave rise to it. He had been warned about it, and it was plenty below the threshold that would cause permanent damage, but it was still unpleasant.

The only blessing that this planet provided, and Reuenthal wasn’t sure how much of a blessing it was, was that gravity was only about eighty-five percent what it was on Odin. It made carrying the heavy winter gear less of a burden, but the bulk of the gear and the unexpected lightness of his limbs made movement feel unpredictable. He was sure he would get used to it, but it would take time. Beyond that, the lessened gravity made every snowstorm that much worse, with flakes able to travel much further in the wind than they would have on Odin.

Reuenthal’s nose and eyes were stinging and watering, but the tears froze on his eyelashes and at the corners of his eyes, and a disgusting, solid crust formed around the edges of his nose. He kept blinking, as though the surface of his eyeballs themselves was freezing, blurring his vision. Even with less than an hour’s exposure to the elements, he could feel the skin on his face beginning to dry and crack.

It was a miserable planet, and the division headquarters and surrounding camp were not much to speak of. It was a few hastily assembled buildings, half buried by snow that pushed up against their walls. They didn’t need much of a defensive perimeter, since it was about as temporary as camps could get, and they had no fear of aerial attacks; as Reuenthal and his men had learned the unpleasant way, even the best air vehicles had a horrifically difficult time navigating the zero visibility, high wind atmosphere of Kapche-Lanka, and the camp itself was invisible from space, covered as it was by snow. He doubted that the rebels knew that they were even in the area, though it didn’t hurt to assume that they did. Since the goal was to retake several bases that had been captured by the rebel fleet, the camp was stationed almost equidistant between all of them, behind a mountain chain.

The resource of interest on the planet-- Reuenthal wasn’t exactly sure what it was, some kind of mineral used in electronics construction, he thought-- was most highly concentrated in these mountainous regions, maybe pushed to the surface of the planet from tectonic activity of millions of years in the past. He had a vague sense of the geography of the planet: the whole thing a featureless plain from the sky, except for the band of liquid water near the equator. The oceans faded into thick sheets of ice towards the north and south, blending so seamlessly into land that the two were indistinguishable, covered as they were most of the year by thick snows. Even in the summer, when the snow melted in places enough to run in wide, torrential rushes back down towards the seas, the dirt underneath was a chalky, mineral white, and there was no trace of any of the plant life that had once covered the planet’s surface. 

There were several mountain ranges that crossed the planet, and Reuenthal’s camp was behind the southernmost, and shortest, range. To the northwest, about two thousand kilometers distant, was a much taller mountain range. Years ago, it had been judged not feasible to mine, due to the more challenging geography, but since now the easier terrain was fully controlled by the rebels, all the new construction was happening there. That was where Mittermeyer was.

Reuenthal did not think about  _ that _ during his first and only night at the base. After attending an exhausting meeting with division command about the ground situation and what deployment would look like the following morning-- different than planned, as one of their transport ships had been shot down en route to the planet, losing them an entire battalion before the battle even started-- Reuenthal retreated to the tiny private room that he was afforded as a senior officer. All his junior officers were sharing a room on the base, and all his NCOs and men were relegated to sleeping on mats on the floor in the largest building. They were apparently the lucky group, because Reuenthal saw that one of the battalions was camped out inside their tanks.

Although his room was small, it was at least warm, and he was able to fall asleep immediately. His dreams were deeply unpleasant, and he could not remember what specifically caused him to wake in a cold sweat, gasping for breath. He sat up, breathing shallow and ragged, completely disoriented in the darkness. His fingers slid around the wall, searching for the light, and in the moment before he found it, he imagined that he was trapped in some tiny space: buried alive, perhaps. 

When he found the light and turned it on, his rational mind was able to process his location, but that didn’t make his heartbeat any slower or his breathing any calmer. He deliberately took deep breaths, until at least he wasn’t hyperventilating. He fumbled around for his phone, to check the time, and his eyes fell on the standard utility kit that everyone had been assigned for emergency survival on the planet, should they become temporarily separated from their group. Reuenthal had doubts about how much the equipment in the tiny belt-bag would be able to do, but it was better than nothing. He pulled it open, searching for one thing in particular: there, the carbon dioxide meter. He squinted at its little indicator, and saw that the needle was teetering on the edge between the yellow and red zones. Fifteen hundred parts per million. No wonder he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

His head hurt. As quickly as he could, with hands that felt clumsy and unfamiliar, Reuenthal dressed and left his room. As soon as he was in the hallway, the reading on his little gas measure dropped back to “normal”, which was still twice as much as one would expect on Odin. Reuenthal had to imagine that the ventilation design of his room was at fault, though it also allowed his room to be so much warmer than the frigid hallway. The intake and outtake vents were both up near the ceiling. Air flowed in, heavy carbon dioxide sank to the bottom of the room without chance of escape, and began to poison him. No wonder he was having nightmares.

Even though the hallway was tolerable, Reuenthal was still gripped by the lingering sensation that the walls were closing in on him, so he made his way outside. 

The snowstorm that had made the whole area pitch black before had gone, leaving the air so taut and cold that Reuenthal imagined swinging an axe against it would cause the whole scene to shatter into fragments like a smashed pane of glass. The base’s lights reflecting unendingly off the snow, plus the stars above, lit the scene to an almost daylight brightness. He walked around the base for a while, ostensibly looking at the rows of tanks that were his to command, but really just trying to clear the lingering sense of doom that hung over him like a cloud. 

After he had finished his inspection, he leaned against the side of one of the tanks and he stared up at the stars above. They had been given a chart of constellations for quick navigation purposes, one that was folded up in his survival kit, but the chart designers always chose easy to remember but unimaginative shapes for what to mark: letters of the alphabet were the most common. The weak magnetic field of the planet had a tendency to shift around, making compasses somewhat unreliable, thus necessitating the map of constellations.

There. The constellation that the map called ‘D’, which was made up of three stars in a curve, with the brightest in the middle, and then two stars close to each other in the ‘gap’ of the arc. Not a ‘D’, then, but a bow, held in a hand. His eyes traced where the arrow would be loosed from, and found the ‘t’ constellation. Five stars, three in a tall line, two stars perpendicular to that axis, near the lowest star. Not a ‘t’, but a sword. 

He continued this exercise, studying the stars, until the alarm on his phone went off, and he went back inside the base to find breakfast. He felt nauseous more than he did hungry, which was probably a lingering effect of the atmosphere, but he forced himself to eat anyway, the high-fat rations tasting both rich and bland at the same time.

Reuenthal would not have described himself as nervous about the upcoming battle. Rationally, he felt prepared and confident. It was only the sickly atmosphere that put a persistent feeling of anxiety on his shoulders, and on everyone else’s. He wasn’t sure if it was an advantage that he and his men had been on the planet for less time than their opponents. On one hand, they would be less worn down by living persistently in this irrational state, but, on the other hand, they might have become used to it if they had been living here for an entire duty cycle. Could one grow used to such a thing? The thought flashed into his head that he could ask Mittermeyer, who had been here for months, supervising new construction. He would not do that. He didn’t even know if there was a way to contact the other bases; in the absence of satellites, which were shot down by the rebel fleet as soon as anyone attempted to put one up, communications any decent distance over-the-horizon were limited to shortwave radio, which was unreliable due to atmospheric conditions, or even more archaic methods, such as messenger birds.

They departed just as the sun was beginning to climb into the sky, necessitating the use of sun-goggles to prevent snow-blindness. Though the sunrise had caused a miniscule rise in temperature, Reuenthal thought it was not worth this extra level of annoyance. 

The three battalions in his group made their way slowly through mountain passes, splitting up early into the long journey so that they could approach the base from different directions, careful to watch for both ambushes and mines. As they came closer to their destination, they ended up losing several tanks to cleverly hidden destructive devices buried underneath the snow, or attached to the sides of rock cliffs. The enemy base was visible from far off, due to the huge radio towers that poked up from the mountain tops. The biggest hindrance to their approach was the terrain; their tanks could only move in lines a few wide.

The rebels had decided not to wage battle within the mountain passes themselves, except for a few artillery posts in advantageous positions. Reuenthal dealt with these using his limited supply of rockets.

The base that they were taking had formerly been an imperial position, so Reuenthal had the advantage of complete and accurate maps of the geography. If he had been walking into this area blind, they would have been massacred. Instead, the majority of his battalion made its plodding way forward, towards the choke point that Reuenthal was sure awaited them at the end of the mountain pass. 

This approach had been chosen because of how close they would be able to get before the rebel base could adequately defend themselves. If they had driven their tanks in across the easy, wide open plain to approach the base from the other direction, Reuenthal and his men would have been at a disadvantage: the base would have been able to shoot at them from much farther away, and much more destructively. The difficult, mountainous terrain was as much of a protection as it was an obstacle.

When they arrived at the choke point, Reuenthal set up his artillery on a high point, having tanks escort it into a defensible position so that it could shell the base below. The base’s air defenses were weaker in the direction of the mountains, so Reuenthal’s battalion, and the others who were approaching from the sides, had a definite advantage. 

The base’s own tanks and guns fired at the pass, trying to prevent Reuenthal from sending in his tanks. Reuenthal was well prepared for this, though. His tanks could be driven remotely, and so he ordered several to be fitted with high explosives, which he then charged, driverless, into the defensive line.

Reuenthal and the other battalions broke through to the base with relatively minimal casualties, considering that they were approaching over difficult terrain, into a well-defended encampment. Out of the hundred and fifty tanks that he had started with, by the time they pushed through into the grounds of the base itself, they had lost about forty. 

And then it was moving on foot into the base itself, first with blasters, and then with axes as they flooded the hallways with Zephyr particles to make blasters ineffective.

During the course of the tank battle, Reuenthal’s command post vehicle had remained near the back of the line, in order to have the best overview of the battle situation. Now that he was walking into the base on foot, though, headed directly for the command center, there was no reason for Reuenthal to remain in the back. He held his axe easily as they ran through the hallways, occasionally having to stop and wait for one of his men to cut open blast doors that had been sealed shut. 

There was only one time that Reuenthal was in any serious danger. Right after his men had broken through a heavy, locked door into the next room, they were immediately hit with a hail of blaster fire before someone could even throw a Zephyr particle canister to stop it. Several of his men were killed immediately in the gunfire. When the rebel forces realized that they needed to switch to axes, Reuenthal found himself face to face, then axe to axe, with an Alliance soldier. Both of them were clad in the heavy winter gear, mask and suit, so Reuenthal could not see this soldier’s face, and the soldier could not see his. 

The fight lasted mere moments. Reuenthal blocked the soldier’s first axe swing with the handle of his axe, then kicked at the soldier’s midsection, sending him stumbling backwards into the wall, freeing Reuenthal’s axe. He swung, aiming for the weak section of the winter-armor where the helmet met the shoulders. The axe hit with a sickening whack, the ease at which it had moved through the air suddenly being replaced with the thick feeling of moving through plastic, then flesh, then bone. The blade was sharp, and red blood spewed out from the suit as the soldier fell, dropping their axe to clutch at their throat, then toppling facefirst to the ground, dead.

Reuenthal didn’t have time to stop and think about the fact that this was the first person he had ever killed. He thought even less about it as he repeated the act of killing several more times as they pressed through the corridor. The pounding of his heart was more about the exertion and the danger to himself than it was about anything else. It was kill or be killed, and he was certainly not going to do the latter. 

He continued to lead his men through the base’s corridors, all bearing the familiar traces of Iimperial design (and conforming to the diagrams that they had been given). The Alliance forces had apparently not done much renovation during their occupation of the base, for which Reuenthal was grateful.

He felt that, although they were meeting with soldiers who fought quite fiercely, there wasn’t as much resistance as he had expected there would be. It had been easier than expected to breach the base’s defenses with their tanks, and now, inside, they were making their way to the control room with great speed. Reuenthal wondered if perhaps the base was just short staffed, because they would need to rotate people off the planet fairly often. He wouldn’t have been surprised if his own command had taken advantage of information on this kind of staffing shortfall to plan the attack. 

They finished taking the base, and Reuenthal and the other battalion leaders took over the conference room to coordinate securing the perimeter, searching to ensure that there weren’t rebel soldiers hiding anywhere, holding the prisoners of war they had captured, and getting back into contact with their headquarters.

Because it was still light out, and because there was a snowstorm sweeping in from over the plains, the radio communication was limited, so one of the other battalion commanders eventually sent out a few tanks as couriers to take the news of their success back to the main camp. 

Overall, the mission had been a complete success. Reuenthal hadn’t lost many men, and they had taken the base without it or the adjoining mine being destroyed. He was feeling quite satisfied with himself as he sat in the control room that night, taking care of all the details of occupying this base and waiting for command to get in contact with them, either by radio or courier.

About two hours after the sun went down behind the mountains, Reuenthal was drinking a cup of black coffee that he had procured from the base commander’s office. It was fine stuff, and he was amused by the yellow mug that he had found with it, which read “I went to El Facil and all I got was this lousy mug!” with some pictures of what Reuenthal assumed were major tourist destinations on the planet. He resolved to bring it back to Odin for Yang. His contemplation of the taste of his coffee was interrupted by the sergeant he had manning the radio.

“Sir, we’re receiving an encrypted transmission over the shortwave.”

“From command?” Reuenthal asked. “It’s about time. Glad the weather cleared up enough for them to transmit.”

“No, sir, it’s not using command’s frequency.”

“Oh? Is it the rebels trying to check in on their base?”

“No, it’s our encryption, sir.”

Reuenthal raised an eyebrow. “What does the message say?”

“The baud rate is very low, sir, and we’re getting a lot of package loss. It will take some time before we have the whole thing.”

“Hm.” Reuenthal drummed his fingers on the table. “Well, let me know as soon as you’ve decrypted it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And try sending another message through to command. If we’re able to receive, I would hope that we’re able to transmit.”

After about twenty minutes, the sergeant brought him the final message. Reuenthal read it with a chill up his spine that could not be accounted for by the weather of Kapche-Lanka. The message was addressed to Kapche-Lanka central command on the other side of the planet, and probably had only arrived in Reuenthal’s hands because of the way that radio waves bounced off the atmosphere. It was timestamped several hours in the past. 

_ At 417 local (KLTZ4) construction base 2-A forward watchpost observed movement of rebel troops approaching base. Estimate of two battalions incl heavy artillery. Took actions to secure perimeter of construction base 2-A and request reinforcement or permission to abandon base and await rescue. Construction and guard crew not sufficient to withstand prolonged engagement. Enemy expected to begin attack within next six hours. -Construction Base 2-A Commander Wolfgang Mittermeyer. Message repeats. _

Accompanying the message was a slew of data about Mittermeyer’s base strength, and then the enemy strength and positioning, though much of it was sketchy.

“Their six hour deadline is in two hours,” Reuenthal said. “Have they broadcast any updates?” He thought that Mittermeyer would at least send updates about the enemy’s position as they came forward.

“Not that I know of, sir,” the sergeant said. “This is coming from a relay station, which will always repeat the last message it gets. The base might no longer be broadcasting.”

Reuenthal put his mug down very slowly. “And have we been able to get in contact with either division command or Kapche-Lanka central?”

“No, sir.”

“Are there any messages from any of the other construction bases?”

“No, sir.”

“Hm.” Several realizations settled into Reuenthal’s mind, calmly and surely. 

First, he saw that Mittermeyer’s assessment of his situation was correct. Given the amount of men and guns and tanks available to him in his half-constructed base, he would not be able to hold out for more than a day, at best. Calling that a ‘prolonged engagement’ might even be generous. He knew Mittermeyer’s strengths well enough to understand that he would put up a better battle than most, but it was not a winnable fight. The best he could hope to do was wait until reinforcements arrived. Even retreating might not be an option, if there was nowhere in driving range for him to retreat  _ to _ , and if they were being fired on as they left. They might be easily overrun. Reuenthal suspected that Mittermeyer would stay put in the hopes of someone else coming.

Second, it was clear that Reuenthal had been set up to succeed because Mittermeyer had been set up to fail. It was obvious, now, to see that the reason that Reuenthal had been able to take this base so easily, the reason that there had been relatively few people guarding it, was because the rest had been sent to capture or destroy Mittermeyer’s base. Imperial intelligence must have gotten word of these plans somehow, and had taken advantage of the opportunity. No wonder the schedule for this operation had felt so rushed. 

Third, it was certain that if Ovelesser even received this message, he would not give Mittermeyer the order to retreat to some nebulous rescue point.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, in the absence of ability to communicate with central command, Reuenthal could make his own decisions about his own battalion.

He stood sharply, holding the printed message in his hand. “Get me Cranz and Halvess in here, and put my battalion on alert.” Cranz and Halvess were the commanders in charge of the other two battalions who had taken this base with him. He was not going to argue with them. He was going to present the movement of his battalion as a foregone conclusion, and that they should remain behind to guard the base. He would leave them no room for contradiction.

* * *

And so it was, less than two hours later, the remaining strength of Reuenthal’s battalion began the long, long journey towards Mittermeyer’s base. It was two thousand kilometers away, but the terrain was very easy-- endless, smooth, featureless plains of ice and snow, which only rose up into mountains near the edges. His tanks could move at one hundred kilometers per hour, and he had taken all the fuel cells from the captured base to use, so they had the driving range to reach Mittermeyer’s base. 

It was a grueling journey, alleviated only somewhat by the tanks’ air filters that brought the atmosphere to Odin-normal levels of carbon dioxide. Without them, Reuenthal felt that his tank crews might have started murdering each other. As it was, taking turns sleeping in the cramped tanks was unpleasant, and everyone had been looking forward to enjoying the relative peace of occupying the captured base for a few days, rather than charging off into another battle.

Reuenthal, for his own part, had communicated only the bare minimum of his reasoning for charging in to the rescue. He wasn’t sure he understood his reasoning himself, not completely. At the very least, the fact that Mittermeyer had been set up as a sacrificial lamb on the altar of Reuenthal’s mission meant that Reuenthal felt like he  _ owed _ the other man, a sensation he found unpleasant. Even if his easy victory at Mittermeyer’s expense had been involuntary, Reuenthal detested the thought of Mittermeyer having something to hold over him. He had purposefully given up anything that they might have owed each other; both of them had.

And, besides, Yang would have never forgiven him if he had left Mittermeyer to die or become a prisoner of war, Reuenthal was certain of that. He didn’t understand how the two remained friends, but friends they were, and Yang would be upset if Mittermeyer were to die.

That was all, or at least it was all he was allowing himself to acknowledge and put words to. 

Reuenthal’s whole battalion slowed to a crawl outside detection range of the base. Although they were still traveling across the plains, and would have been visible for many kilometers on a clear day, the whole area was enveloped now in both the utter darkness of night and a swirling snowstorm, one that was probably responsible for the radio blackout they were experiencing. He sent a few tanks to scout ahead and report on the situation, as walking in completely blind would do him no favors. They returned with information that gave Reuenthal some relief: the base was still holding, though there was a fierce fight happening close to the base’s main entrance. It seemed as though most of Mittermeyer’s artillery had either run out of ammunition or been disabled, so they were using their tanks rather like a barricade, to prevent entrance through the rocky pass into the base itself.

Reuenthal had two advantages: that of surprise, and that of being a relatively fresh force. Although he and his men had spent the last twenty hours travelling, that was still a far cry from spending the last twenty hours engaged in active battle. He had plenty of ammunition and plenty of undamaged tanks.

In other respects, though, he and Mittermeyer were still at a great disadvantage. Reuenthal’s scout reported that there were at least two enemy battalions, possibly three. Reuenthal had one, and Mittermeyer’s construction crew barely amounted to half of one (not to mention, they were a group of engineers and builders, rather than a fully armed and trained ground force).

There was not much that he could do in preparation, so Reuenthal sent his tanks in to charge, taking a spearhead formation. He didn’t intend to fully break through the massed group of rebel tanks, but if he could disrupt their rear line enough to throw them into chaos, that might be enough.

A remote part of his mind was thankful for Staden as his instructor, who had focused inordinately on ground combat. Another part of his mind was wondering what Yang would have done in his place. Probably he would have cleared a path for Mittermeyer to get out, and then abandon the base, Ovelesser be damned. But Yang was not here, and Reuenthal, though he had charged in under his own authority, did not have Yang’s devil-may-care attitude towards orders from above when it came to saving lives, and neither did he have Yang’s propensity to retreat at the earliest convenience. He was hopeful that his presence would allow them to hold the base until further reinforcements showed up, reinforcements who he suspected would come, now that more than just Mittermeyer’s men were committed to the battle. It would look very bad for Ovelesser to abandon them to the wolves.

Reuenthal’s battalion charged.

It was difficult to keep track of the state of the battle, even with the constantly updating map his own tanks sent to him with their positions-- the enemy vehicles did not show up on it, and the snow was so thick that it was hard to see any of them without being within a few meters. Reuenthal’s sudden arrival caused mass chaos, and he almost regretted his choice of formation for that reason. His troops were  _ too _ effective. Where he had intended to strike the center of, and scatter, the enemy vehicles, instead, his battalion broke directly through their center, and ended up forming a long line in between two groups of enemy tanks, extending towards the base entrance. 

He had succeeded in dealing a significant blow to the rebel forces, leaving huge numbers of their tanks disabled, and getting them away from the immediate danger point: the entrance to Mittermeyer’s base, but, in doing so, his tanks were now in a vulnerable position. They were being fired on from both sides, now that the enemy knew where they were. Reuenthal gave the order to bunch up, so that they wouldn’t be so easily picked off in the long and open line. He was able to do that, but when he tried to give the order to force outwards, to prevent themselves from being totally encircled, various parts of his formation began to collapse under the enemy’s superior numbers, which would leave an easy opening for the rebels to get back to their original position at the base entrance, and pick off Reuenthal’s forces swiftly.

They were saved from this fate, but only barely. Forces emerged from the base, half in tanks and half on open, motorized sledges designed to haul construction materials across the snow, coming to reinforce Reuenthal. Hurriedly, while the main gates to the base were open, Reuenthal gave an order over the radio. “Continue to fire on the enemy and back towards the base entrance to regroup. If your vehicle is disabled, abandon it and go in on foot. If you can, position it as a blockade.”

It was a good thing that he gave that order when he did, because moments later, his own tank was hit by rocket fire. Luckily, it was an indirect, and thus survivable, blow, but it completely destroyed the treads on the left side of the vehicle, and knocked Reuenthal hard in his seat. The main power of the engine whined and then died, and the red emergency lights filled the tank with a sick glow. 

“We’re sitting ducks here, sir,” the tank driver said. “I recommend you head into the base. We can provide covering fire.”

Reuenthal nodded. He donned his helmet and took an axe and rifle from the back of the tank, and the rest of the tank crew did the same. They climbed one by one out the top hatch, the two who climbed out first laying atop the top of the tank and firing their rifles at any of the enemy who were sticking their heads out of their own tanks. It wouldn’t have done anything to stop another direct hit from another tank’s guns, or another rocket blast, but it was something. Reuenthal climbed out as well, then slid down behind the tank into the thick snow on the ground, struggling to run through the center of his own formation towards the base entrance. He made it into the base, grateful for the easier movement on the hard-packed snow, and the protection that the heavy rock walls provided. 

Reuenthal pulled aside one of the people whose protective outdoor gear was covered in high-vis orange: far better for construction work in heavy snow than for combat, so clearly a member of the base crew. “Where is the base commander?” he yelled over the sound of the fighting. The man pointed back towards one of the buildings. Reuenthal’s instinct was to run towards it, but he stayed at the entrance, making sure that his own men retreated inside the base in an orderly fashion. He joined up with the lieutenant who was surveying the scene from the watch post above the rocky base entrance, coordinating the opening and shutting of the great gates, and Reuenthal used his radio to direct his remaining tanks, now much fewer in number, to take up defensive positions on construction roads carved into the sides of the rocks above the base, and just within the entrance. 

At last, there was a lull in the battle, as the rebel forces backed off slightly to regroup, and the base closed itself off as best it could. 

Reuenthal was about to go find Mittermeyer, and was on his way out of the watch post to do so, when he heard Mittermeyer’s familiar voice, loud and drifting up from the ground below.

“Ensign, do you know if there are other reinforcements coming?” Mittermeyer asked.

“No, sir,” the ensign, one of Reuenthal’s junior officers, Baumann, was saying. “The commander couldn’t get in contact with high command, but we heard your message asking for aid, so he said it was our responsibility to come.”

“Is he some kind of noble type, then?” Mittermeyer asked. There was a momentary pause. “Never mind, don’t answer that question.” Reuenthal could just picture the look on Mittermeyer’s face. “Do you know where he is?”

Reuenthal chose that moment to step out of the watch post and slide down the ladder to the ground.

“He’s right here,” Reuenthal said. 

There was a moment of surprise from both Mittermeyer and Baumann.

“Oskar?” Mittermeyer asked, his eyes widening as he looked at Reuenthal, who was still wearing his helmet.

Baumann turned, startled, and saluted sharply. Reuenthal saluted back. “Go find out exactly what our remaining strength is,” Reuenthal said to Baumann, mostly to get rid of him. 

“Yes, sir!” Baumann said, and dashed away.

“Commander Mittermeyer,” Reuenthal said coldly. “We should discuss our plans for defense.”

Mittermeyer was still looking at him as though Reuenthal was a ghost. “Is that really you, Reuenthal?”

“Not that it matters in any way, but yes, it is.” He didn’t take off his helmet like Mittermeyer, who was holding his loosely under his arm. 

“What are you doing here?”

“I got your radio message asking for help. Since I had accomplished my own objective early, it was reasonable for me to come here. We should discuss our defense.”

“Oh, yes,” Mittermeyer said. “This way.” He reached out, as though to put a hand on Reuenthal’s arm, then let it drop and instead started heading towards one of the buildings. “You came just in time,” he said as they walked.

“Oh?”

“I ran out of rockets ages ago, and they had just taken out my last stationary artillery. If they breached the outer wall, I would have had to give the order to retreat out the back, which would have been messy.”

“You can’t retreat,” Reuenthal said, and briefly explained Yang’s warning about Ovelesser, who was in charge of the operation. “My thought was that, by committing more forces here, Ovelesser’s hand will be forced to send in even more reinforcements.”

Mittermeyer frowned. “And if he doesn’t?”

“Then we will either die or become prisoners of war,” Reuenthal said.

“You shouldn’t have come, then.”

“Oh?”

“If there’s no guarantee that Ovelesser will send in support, you’ve condemned yourself instead of just me.”

Reuenthal glanced at him and saw that Mittermeyer was frowning deeply. There were dark circles under his eyes. Reuenthal suspected that he hadn’t slept in at least a day, probably longer. “How sentimental of you,” he finally said.

Mittermeyer let him into the building they were walking towards, a squat thing constructed of cinderblocks, with drifts of snow piling up along the edges. The building looked like it had once been the coordination center for the construction of the base and mine: the maps on the walls were pinned up next to long charts showing construction progress and timelines, all totally irrelevant now, Reuenthal was sure. There was no one else in the room at the moment, though the presence of open computers on the long central table, and several cups of coffee that were still hot enough to steam in the air indicated that this room saw much use.

“You can take off that helmet now that we’re indoors,” Mittermeyer said. “Coffee?” He poured himself a mug from the industrial sized machine in the corner, and offered one to Reuenthal.

Reuenthal hesitated a moment before taking off his helmet and accepting. Mittermeyer dumped creamer and sugar into his cup, but Reuenthal just sipped his black. They were silent for a second, and Mittermeyer kept glancing at Reuenthal in a way that made him uncomfortable, unused to being observed like this. He stared back at Mittermeyer with as blank of an expression as he could muster, then said, “Explain to me what the situation is here.”

Mittermeyer did so, walking him through the defenses that remained to the base, and Reuenthal provided his own input. It was a businesslike conversation, at least for a while, especially since their adjutants wandered in at various points, looking for orders and bearing reports on what the enemy outside was doing. 

“It shouldn’t be too complicated to just hold out as long as possible,” Mittermeyer said.

“Not complicated does not mean not difficult,” Reuenthal said. He studied the map in front of him. “We should be able to hold out for some time.”

“Yes,” Mittermeyer agreed. He looked at Reuenthal. “You shouldn’t have come, but I’m glad you’re here.”

Reuenthal made a noise that wasn’t agreement. “You’d be better off with Leigh.”

“I somehow doubt that. Besides, he’s not even on the planet.”

“He would find a way to let you retreat.”

“You think that’s what I want?”

Reuenthal’s smile was grim. “Luckily, what you want is of no concern to me.”

“Why did you come here, really, Reuenthal?”

“Because it was a sound strategic choice. The base is valuable enough to be worth holding, especially if it means the rebels have less of a foothold on the planet.”

Mittermeyer had always been able to tell when he wasn’t saying exactly what was on his mind. “And that’s all?”

Reuenthal had no desire to explain the rest of his reasoning. “Of course it is. Did you really think there would be any other reason?”

Mittermeyer’s frown deepened. “Do you want me to apologize to you, or something?”

“No,” Reuenthal said. “You should stay focused on the business at hand. Fighting while distracted will mean you’ll be far less likely to get home to your pretty little wife.”

“Reuenthal—” Mittermeyer said, but Reuenthal was turning on his heel and heading out of the building, slipping his helmet onto his head as he did.

* * *

The defense of the base went well for about twelve hours. Reuenthal barely saw Mittermeyer, as he was focused more on keeping his own forces organized and engaged, whereas Mittermeyer stayed on top of the overall defense of the base. Reuenthal did not mind not seeing him.

It was darkly funny, he thought, that they still worked together so well. He would tell one of his lieutenants something like, “Send those tanks with the damaged gun turrets to Mittermeyer. He’ll want them.” His lieutenants would look at him like he was crazy, but sure enough, they would report back that yes, indeed, Mittermeyer had been very happy to receive whatever Reuenthal had sent. And the opposite was also true— Mittermeyer predicted Reuenthal’s movements and supported him without any questions or commentary being necessary.

Still, despite their best teamwork, and the fact that the enemy was clearly also flagging and running low on supplies, they were still outnumbered, and their situation could not hold much longer. The enemy was beginning what felt like Reuenthal to be a last ditch attempt to enter the base. It wasn’t clear to him if the enemy knew that their ‘home bases’ on the other side of the wide plain had been seized; they had nowhere to retreat to. It would explain why they hadn’t left yet, at least. Capturing Mittermeyer’s base might feel like their best chance of survival. 

Reuenthal ran out of rockets and artillery, leaving him and Mittermeyer with only tanks and a limited supply of ammunition with which to defend the base. They moved all the tanks into a defensive formation inside the base’s main walls as the enemy switched from picking off their few remaining defenses to simply shelling the heavy rock walls and door to knock it down and enter the base. 

The whole scene felt weirdly silent as the door caved in. Flashes of gunfire lit the snow and sky, but sound didn’t travel very well past all the muffled flakes in the air, and everything was odd and distant feeling, even though Reuenthal was right there in it, standing behind one of his tanks with an axe slung across his back and a rifle in his hand. There was hardly any point in being in a tank; they couldn’t maneuver very well in the limited space within the base, so Reuenthal simply spent his time with his rifle mechanically picking off any rebel soldiers that climbed out of their own tanks to try to take the base on foot. 

He shouted the occasional order to keep his men in line, but there wasn’t much more that could be said. The enemy had breached the walls, and everyone knew that all that was really left to do was fight in increasingly close quarters until one side or the other gave out completely. 

There was red blood on the white snow, illuminated briefly by flashes of light from the firing of guns, or the lights of the tanks or the base, flipped on and off seemingly at random. It was chaos, with the tanks on both sides eventually becoming completely useless, destroyed by fire or running out of ammunition, and so the battle was reduced to a gunfight. And then the energy packs on the guns began to run out, one after another, and they switched at last to axes.

When Reuenthal’s own energy pack on his rifle flashed red with the low power warning, and he found that he had no one around to ask for a spare from (if there had been any spares to be had, which he doubted), he slung the gun over his back and pulled out his axe, retreating a little from the main fight to see if he could find a spare energy pack somewhere. 

He spotted someone in an Imperial uniform engaged in a three-on-one fight with axes, holding his own but probably for not much longer. Reuenthal entered that fray, swinging his axe one handed to cleave one Alliance soldier at the shoulder, sending him to the ground. The Imperial soldier that Reuenthal had come to rescue was then able to quickly dispatch the other two.

“Thanks,” the man said, and he immediately recognized his voice as Mittermeyer’s. 

“You’re welcome,” Reuenthal said.

“Came to rescue me again, I see.” Mittermeyer’s tone was light, now, despite the situation that they found themselves in. Reuenthal abandoned his plan of finding a spare energy pack; if Mittermeyer no longer had one, there probably weren’t any to be had in the entire base. 

“You had better pay me that debt back fast,” Reuenthal said. “I don’t want you to go to Valhalla owing me something.”

“Sure,” Mittermeyer said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They stood shoulder to shoulder, then charged forward without speaking to fight another small group of Alliance soldiers, taking them all out without too much difficulty. Despite everything, Reuenthal wouldn’t have chosen anyone else to have at his side during something like this. He trusted Mittermeyer’s strength and steadiness, and Mittermeyer trusted Reuenthal’s reflexes and judgement. They complemented each other well.

Reuenthal had forgotten, or tried not to remember, what it was like to move side by side with Mittermeyer. Mittermeyer had a way of making every motion look both effortless and graceful, even underneath the heavy suits, in the weird gravity of Kapche-Lanka. Mittermeyer was more used to it than Reuenthal was, he supposed, since he had been here longer. Every swing of his axe was like the swift claw of some great animal, killing silently in the snow. 

Reuenthal knew he should take his own advice: he was fighting distracted.

They each saved the other’s life several times, but Reuenthal was not keeping count, not there in the thick of things, and he suspected that Mittermeyer wasn’t either. He would just call it even between them.

Eventually, they ended up somehow separated from the main fighting, and surrounded by Alliance forces. Reuenthal and Mittermeyer were back to back.

“I wish I had a better axe,” Mittermeyer said over the howling of the snowy wind. “How are you holding up?”

“We’re in the same bad state,” Reuenthal said, eyeing the Alliance soldiers coming towards them.

“Too bad, or I’d let you have them,” Mittermeyer said.

“How kind of you.” Reuenthal’s grip tightened on his axe. The blade, now dull, glinted in the moonlight reflecting off of every snowflake. The whole thing was crusted dark red with frozen blood.

“Should we surrender?” Mittermeyer asked.

“I’d usually say it’s not my style, but I think we’ve killed too many of them for them to want us tossing down our axes.”

“Not even for the base?” It was a stupid question for Mittermeyer to ask, and they both knew it. Reuenthal couldn’t imagine what possessed Mittermeyer to propose it. After all, in the position that they were in, killing them would be just as effective at seizing the base as their surrender would be, and it would probably be more satisfying to those Alliance soldiers whose comrades they had both killed.

The Alliance soldiers were coming closer, crunching over hard snow, sinking in soft, stumbling slightly. Everyone here was bone tired, but Reuenthal and Mittermeyer were two against maybe fifteen. At their best, they might have won, but their weapons were dull and they were on the edge of exhausted collapse. 

Reuenthal felt weirdly calm, for the first time since being on this planet. The poisoned atmosphere wasn’t bothering him, or his exhaustion had stifled the panic in his brain. If he was going to die, it might as well be here. It might as well be with Mittermeyer.

As the Alliance soldiers approached, Mittermeyer said something that wiped away the exhaustion from Reuenthal’s mind and replaced it with pure, undirected anger. “Eva, forgive me,” Mittermeyer said.

Reuenthal charged into the group of Alliance soldiers, swinging his axe, forcing Mittermeyer to follow him. He was acting on instinct alone, this frenzied rush of movement over the snow. Mittermeyer may need to beg Evangeline’s forgiveness for dying here, but at least that was one part of him that she could never have. She could steal his life from Reuenthal, but he had an odd satisfaction in the sense that, since they were both about to die here, Reuenthal would get to have that, at the very least.

Reuenthal was swinging his axe with arms that felt like lead weights when he heard it; somehow over the yelling and the deadening sounds of the snow, the heavy throb of an engine, a big one. He killed the person in front of him, then had a single second to look up into the swirling air, each snowflake burning like a light. There, hovering in the air far above them, was the massive form of an imperial destroyer, its stardrive acting like a rebuke of Kapche-Lanka’s gravity. From its hold spilled out a dozen little air-ships, the kind of close range atmosphere vehicles that were nearly useless on Kapche-Lanka, due to the ferocity of the weather. Still, somehow, these ships flew through the snow, pushed back and forth by the wind, and the hot sound of their guns pulsed through the air, killing Alliance soldiers with laser targeted precision, evaporating snowflakes en-route and leaving steaming pits in the ground where people had once stood.

From the brink of defeat, surrounded on all sides, they were saved. Reuenthal had the nasty thought that he was actually disappointed by this, but then he realized that he was too tired to actually care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see lol. wish I had a coherent explanation for you, but I don’t, so we’ll all just have to accept that this chapter took a stupid long time to write for no good reason and move on with our lives lol. I hope it was worth the wait. I actually do think I know why it took a bit— this chapter is pretty dialogue light, which is always a struggle. Logh is a show about people standing around in rooms talking, and by god, that is what I love to write about lol
> 
> Anyway, Reuenthal has problems, but what else is new. 
> 
> My computer seems to have died, so this chapter was partially written on my ipad, which is a rather unfortunate chapter-writing experience. Oh well, one copes with what one must, and at least I didn’t have to write this on my phone haha.
> 
> Chapter title is from a mountain goats song, as per usual. You should also go listen to the song “Going to Alaska” which I have been thinking about a lot. I’d link but not being on my computer makes everything about ten times harder to do, and I am a deeply lazy person.
> 
> See you again soon! Thank you to Lydia and Em for the beta read :) You can find me on tumblr as @javert or on twitter as @natsinator . My original fiction is at bit.ly/shadowofheaven and bit.ly/arcadispark


	3. Quantum Chromodynamics

_ January 485, Kapche-Lanka _

Reuenthal had been taken back to Kapche-Lanka central command and thoroughly chewed out by almost everyone shy of Ovelesser himself. He didn’t mind this, not the yelling, nor the fact that he avoided speaking to Ovelesser directly. After all, no matter how much people may have disapproved of his actions, they couldn’t exactly punish him for them. He and Mittermeyer looked rather heroic, when it came down to it, holding the base against pretty bad odds. Reuenthal hadn’t truly stepped outside of his own authority— he hadn’t been able to contact command— and answering a direct request for aid from an ally was hardly something that could be looked down upon.

Still, Reuenthal knew that the original plan had been to leave Mittermeyer, and all the other construction bases, to their fate. And it was clear that the high command was well aware of that plan, and that Reuenthal’s actions had embarrassed them into acting. Reuenthal was beginning to get a sense of what it felt like to be Yang, he suspected. He was also developing a sharp hatred for the high command, or at least everyone in charge of the operation.

It wasn’t as though Reuenthal didn’t understand that sacrifices must sometimes be made. After all, his charging in to rescue Mittermeyer had cost, in the end, about two hundred fifty of his own men. He could even understand the secrecy in not preparing Mittermeyer and the other construction base commanders of what was coming. If the rebels became aware that the empire knew of their plans, the plans would most assuredly change. But he could not understand why command had been so reluctant to give the order to rescue the construction bases, even after the main objective of capturing the Alliance bases had been totally successful. Were they so callous as to treat the lives of everyone in the construction bases as totally disposable and not worth saving? Did they think that the physical bases themselves were so unprofitable that there was no reason to keep them?

Even with his growing hatred, Reuenthal was very good at keeping his face a smooth mask during these meetings, not giving away any of his feelings about the behavior of his superiors, and answering the questions asked of him with the kinds of answers that he suspected that Yang would have given in his place. He certainly didn’t have Yang’s guileless, honest face, but Reuenthal knew how to appeal to authority, which was a benefit on its own.

When he was done being yelled at, Reuenthal was basically forgotten about, which he didn’t mind at all. He was going to be stuck on Kapche-Lanka for a while, just until the situation on the planet, and in the space around the planet, stabilized enough that they could get crew transports in to shuffle people around. Reuenthal couldn’t say that he minded. He spent his time writing the obligatory condolence letters to the next-of-kin of the dead members of his battalion, then sending them down to those mens’ actual direct superiors to pass along. It wasn’t as though Reuenthal knew any of them particularly well. He had only been in command of them for a few weeks, and he was certain that, as soon as the transfer orders came through, he would not be in command of them any more.

Reuenthal was right on that count: after a few days he received a notice. His promotion to captain, probably the most grudging ‘for heroism’ promotion ever granted, was accompanied by a notice that he was being transferred back to the Ministry of War on Odin. He certainly didn’t mind that. It was unlikely that he would be given a front line position again any time soon, since he had just done something unpredictable, and that was the last thing that anyone wanted in front line commanders, but he looked too good on paper to be sent off to some remote colony. The idea of being back near Yang pleased him.

What did not please him, not exactly, was the message he found in his inbox a few hours later.

_ I see that you’ve made captain. It doesn’t surprise me, and you deserve it. If you’re not busy, I would like to celebrate your promotion, and also pay back that debt I owe you. I’ll buy drinks, if you want to get some. I understand if you don’t. Anyway, I’ll be in the officer’s lounge in bldg 2 later tonight. _

_ Happy New Year. _

_ Your friend, _

_ Wolfgang Mittermeyer _

He didn’t know how to feel about that at all. He hadn’t known that Mittermeyer was even at central command. They hadn’t left his base together— Mittermeyer had stayed to assess the damage, and Reuenthal had left without really speaking to him. He pulled up Mittermeyer’s file and saw that he had also been promoted to captain, a fact that he had failed to mention in his letter, but it didn’t surprise Reuenthal at all. He wondered if Mittermeyer was also being reassigned. He couldn’t tell from the relatively public database he had access to.

Rather than make a decision and reply to the letter, Reuenthal spent some time sewing the new stripes onto the shoulders of his uniforms, doing a very neat job but poking the sewing needle through the fabric much harder than was necessary. He only stabbed himself in the thumb a few times, an injury that he certainly could have avoided if he felt like avoiding it.

When he had finished, he had nothing left to do, and so he stared blankly at the wall of his room for a little while. He thought about writing a message to Yang, but then remembered that Yang would tell him to go talk to Mittermeyer. Why did Yang want that? Reuenthal still couldn’t understand. 

He wanted to get drunk. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any alcohol in his room, and the only place to get any would, in fact, be the officer’s lounge. He could pick a different one than Mittermeyer was in, but that felt a little too much like admitting defeat. 

Still, he waited a long time before actually going out to the officer’s lounge. He wondered if Mittermeyer would give up on waiting for him, though Mittermeyer hadn’t specified a time in his message. It was late, though, when Reuenthal finally made his way through the odd, inflatable tubes that ran between the domed buildings that made up Kapche-Lanka central command. 

There was a strange feeling in his chest as he walked through the halls: a feeling of anticipation mixed with anger that he was trying to stifle into something else. He would have been lying to himself if he said that thoughts of Mittermeyer had not featured heavily in his dreams over the past few days, mixed in with images of swirling snow that morphed into fire when touched with light or blood. Not nightmares, exactly, but intense dreams that had woken him with a feeling that his skin was too-tight for his body, as if he was cracking out of it like a shell. And it was, involuntarily, thoughts of Mittermeyer next to him, swinging an axe, hands and helmet covered in frozen blood, that had occupied Reuenthal’s fantasies, as well. The image had burned itself into Reuenthal’s eyes, and he would need some stronger, brighter light to clean it out. He would forget it all when he was back on Odin, he was sure, or at least be able to put it aside.

He was not able to put it aside now, though, not when he was walking into the lounge, nearly empty for the lateness of the hour, and seeing Mittermeyer sitting alone at the bar, a single, half-empty beer glass in front of him. He was staring vacantly into space, and his hands were loose on the glass. Mittermeyer didn’t notice Reuenthal come in, and Reuenthal almost took that as a chance to change his mind and walk out, but seeing Mittermeyer compelled him to walk forward and take a seat next to him at the bar.

Mittermeyer looked up, startled, and then smiled, the kind of wide smile that Reuenthal had always liked, as though Mittermeyer was pleased, and surprised to be pleased, and even happier for that surprise. 

“Reuenthal!” he said. “Congratulations on your promotion!” He flagged the bartender down to get Reuenthal a drink, which he silently accepted. He waited until the bartender had left to say anything to Mittermeyer, and in that silent moment, Mittermeyer’s smile faltered slightly. There was some satisfaction to be gained from that, Reuenthal thought.

“Did you think that I wouldn’t know you got promoted as well? There’s really no need to congratulate me.”

Mittermeyer relaxed a little, perhaps because Reuenthal’s tone wasn’t as poisonous as it could have been. “Well,” Mittermeyer said, taking a sip from his beer, “I certainly don’t know if I deserve mine.”

“Why, were you thinking that you’d end up a commodore instead?”

Mittermeyer frowned a little. “It would be a lie to say that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.” He tilted his beer around. “That’s why I say I don’t really deserve it. I would have been in real trouble without you.”

Reuenthal shrugged and took a drink from his own cup. “You would have escaped,” he said after a long second.

“Yes, into the wasteland,” Mittermeyer said. “Much more pleasant to starve or freeze than to be killed with an axe.”

Reuenthal did chuckle a little at that. “Better to be a living captain than a dead commodore, I suppose.”

“I don’t think there’s any supposing about it,” Mittermeyer said. “I owe you.”

“No, you don’t,” Reuenthal said. “Forget it.”

“You said I did.”

“Not for coming to the base in the first place,” Reuenthal said. “Perhaps for putting my own career on the line to come, but not for coming in general.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

So Reuenthal explained the whole situation, how Mittermeyer had been set up to fail, and how high command had been embarrassed by Reuenthal taking the initiative, forcing their hand to come and rescue the construction base. Mittermeyer’s mouth was a pinched line, and he tugged at his ear, a weird tic that Reuenthal had never seen in him before. But he was looking at Reuenthal with a steady gaze, and his eyes were wide and appreciatively open. “Maybe I did lose my chance to become a commodore from that,” Reuenthal said as he finished.

That made Mittermeyer frown. “I don’t think so.”

“No? I’m being taken off the front lines.”

“Are you being sent to the frontier?” Mittermeyer asked, sounding genuinely unhappy.

Reuenthal let him stew in it for a second. “No,” he finally said. “Back to Odin.”

“Oh! Well, that’s fine, then.”

“Is it?”

Mittermeyer hesitated. “I’m going back to Odin, too.”

“Congratulations.”

“Not sure why you’re congratulating me now,” Mittermeyer said.

Reuenthal raised his glass. “I failed to make your wife a widow.”

Mittermeyer looked at the raised glass hesitantly. “Were you trying to?”

“Do you expect me to answer that question in a way that satisfies you?”

Mittermeyer shook his head and finally raised his own glass. “To both of us returning to Odin alive.”

“If we must toast to that,” Reuenthal said. “Prosit.” He knocked his glass on Mittermeyer’s. 

They drank in silence for a little while. It was an awkward silence, but Reuenthal was glad for it anyway, since it meant that he didn’t have a chance to say anything unpleasant. He thought he was being on his best behavior, though he wasn’t sure that anyone else would agree. He was proving to Yang that he could be both civil and controlled, wasn’t he? But, of course, that hadn’t even been what Yang was concerned with. Reuenthal stared down at his glass, almost empty. Mittermeyer flagged the bartender down to get them another round of drinks.

“How have you been?” Mittermeyer asked, finally breaking the silence.

“Fine,” Reuenthal said. 

“Not going to elaborate?”

“I’m not sure what there is to elaborate on. My posting on Odin before this was boring, and I continue to be alive here.”

“Leigh always said in his letters that you were doing well.” He tilted his glass. “I just wanted to hear that from you directly, I guess.”

“And what else did Leigh tell you about me?”

Mittermeyer frowned. “Not much.”

“Oh?”

“Do you want me to tell you that he gives me the day in and day out of his life, and all the details of every time you see each other?” Mittermeyer asked. “Because he doesn’t. He—“ Mittermeyer broke off and shook his head.

“What, then? What does he say?”

“Gods, Reuenthal. He tells me that you’re fine. And then he tells me shit like ‘I will tell him to talk to you, if you want.’”

“And what do you say in response to that?”

Mittermeyer shook his head. “I have not once figured out what I’m supposed to say to that.” He looked down at the scarred laminate of the bar countertop. “Does he tell you to talk to me?”

“Yes.” Viciously, Reuenthal added, “And maybe he’ll stop pestering us both, now that I have.”

Mittermeyer looked away. “Yeah.” There was very obvious pain in Mittermeyer’s voice, and then there was again a long silence between them. This one was more painful than it was awkward. Mittermeyer didn’t look at Reuenthal, but Reuenthal could not help but stare at him, the way his shoulders were slumped slightly, highlighting how he hadn’t yet bothered to sew the new captain’s stripes onto his uniform. Or perhaps he had intentionally not done so, in order to not draw attention to his own promotion. The thought made Reuenthal frown.

He broke the silence. “You’ve been on Kapche-Lanka for a while,” he said. “Do you feel like you’ve gotten used to it?”

“Used to what?” Mittermeyer asked, startled both by Reuenthal talking and by the complete non-sequitur. It had been a question that Reuenthal had wanted to ask since he had arrived on the planet, so it felt like a natural conversation topic.

“The atmosphere,” Reuenthal clarified. “The way it makes you feel like there’s not enough air in the room. The feeling at the back of your mind that something is wrong.” He took another long drink, finishing his glass, and the bartender provided him a new one without comment.

It took a second for Mittermeyer to answer. “I don’t even know if I noticed it, to be honest,” he said.

“Don’t tell me that I’m more sensitive to this than you are,” Reuenthal said. “I couldn’t bear the thought.”

Mittermeyer shook his head. “No, I don’t mean that.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I just— I already had plenty to think about. To worry about. The air wasn’t going to change that either way.”

“Oh? What worries were those.”

Mittermeyer glanced at him with a flat and unhappy expression. “You know very well.”

“It would be presumptuous of me to assume that I was taking up so much residence in your thoughts.”

“You’re right, you would be,” Mittermeyer said. “But it’s not anything that I’m not used to from you.”

Reuenthal chuckled. “Please, wound me more deeply, Mittermeyer.”

Mittermeyer scowled and said nothing.

“So, what was it that was bothering you, if it wasn’t me?”

“I’m not sure why you would care.”

“If we’re going to sit here and talk, then we should sit here and talk,” Reuenthal said. Getting a reaction out of Mittermeyer amused him, or it was at least a feeling he could call amusement. It was close enough.

“You might not understand this, but it is stressful to leave your wife for a long time, to go to the front lines, to do work you feel yourself truly unsuited for.”

“And which part of that do you think that I wouldn’t understand?”

Mittermeyer turned slightly away. “You’ve never once found work that was unsuited to you, have you?”

Reuenthal took another drink. “Unlike you, I have never once pretended that I had any interest in engineering.”

“Yeah.”

Reuenthal raised his glass. “To never having to pretend,” he said. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Mittermeyer’s shoulders slumped further. “You have to be cruel, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what’s cruel about the truth,” Reuenthal said. “You seem to have gotten what you wanted. Or am I wrong about that?”

Mittermeyer took a long time to answer. “No.” He didn’t look at Reuenthal. “It was what I wanted.” But there was a clear and unspoken addition that Mittermeyer had not gotten it.

“Was?”

Mittermeyer didn’t answer. They fell into silence once again, until Mittermeyer finally said, “I won’t ever have it, so there’s no point in wanting it. And just the act of wanting it in the first place—” He shook his head.

“I should have realized that you would give up on things so easily.”

“Will you cut it out?” Mittermeyer said. “I’m sorry. If that’s what you want me to say.”

“I don’t want anything,” Reuenthal said. “I’m free of it completely.”

Mittermeyer snorted. “Sure.”

“You say that like it’s a thing that a person is incapable of. It would seem that you have everything that you could want. I didn’t ever think you were greedy.”

“Even your compliments are intended to cut me, I see.”

“Yes,” Reuenthal agreed. “So, what is it that you want?”

“I thought you said you didn’t care.”

“I certainly don’t, but I’m asking out of idle curiosity.”

“I wanted to see you,” Mittermeyer said. “For a year and a half. Maybe eventually I would have given up on it, but then you came— you saved my life and now you’re just here to taunt me about it.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m taunting you.”

“No, you wouldn’t say that.”

“I could be much more insulting. I have a whole dictionary of epithets I could use against you.”

“Seriously, Reuenthal, stop it.”

So he did, falling silent with a shrug. He felt like he couldn’t quite get himself as under control as he wanted to be. But, then again, he had no idea how he really wanted to behave, or what he even wanted out of this conversation. Why had he come? He couldn’t explain it to himself.

He knew what he wanted, actually. He wanted Mittermeyer to have never married his wife, but that was an impossible want. A safe want, for its impossibility. It was impossible, for example, to want to hold the sun in his palm, and so he couldn’t hurt himself trying to achieve it. Wanting the past to change was one thing. Wanting something tantalizingly close in the present was another.

Perhaps Mittermeyer felt the same way.

The ugly silence stretched on between them. Reuenthal was moderately drunk at this point, which was not helping the clarity of his thoughts or his mood. He studied Mittermeyer’s hands as they rested on the bar counter. He was doing a strange little motion, over and over, where his hands would start out relaxed enough, purposefully so, and slowly, over the course of a minute, he would begin to ball them into fists, digging his nails into his palms. When Mittermeyer caught himself doing this, he would reach for his glass, take a long drink, and then set his hands back down on the table: relaxed, deliberate. Reuenthal had always liked his hands, and he was transfixed by this pattern and movement.

“How’s your wife?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“Don’t ask me that question.”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s no good reason you have for asking,” Mittermeyer said. “Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you.”

Although Mittermeyer had a point, it was a matter of pride for Reuenthal to act affronted. “Perhaps I am asking because I would like to know that you are being taken care of.”

Mittermeyer relaxed a little, some of the tension leaving his back. He turned towards Reuenthal. “I am,” he said. “She’s fine. Great.”

“You miss her?”

“Of course,” Mittermeyer said. “How could I not?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Reuenthal said. “I don’t know if that would be the predominant emotion that I would feel, if I had a wife to be away from.”

Mittermeyer gave him a look. “And are you about to get a wife, or is this more of you talking about things in my life that you don’t understand?”

“I don’t know if one needs a wife to understand the ways in which wives behave.”

Mittermeyer frowned deeply. “Reuenthal…”

“My own mother cheated on my father, you know, and they were living together at the time. I imagine that it’s that much easier when you’re in space.”

“I’ll thank you to stop making insinuations about my wife.”

“I’m not making insinuations. I’m stating the facts: there’s no such thing as a woman that you can trust.”

“I trust Eva.”

“Eva... What makes her so different?”

“She— I trust her. That’s all that you need to know.”

“You might be making a mistake there,” Reuenthal said. “Evangeline. I’m sure she’s no different than any other woman.”

“Keep her name out of your mouth if you’re going to talk about her like that.”

“Oh?” Reuenthal picked up his glass. “I just am trying to prepare you for any eventuality when you go home. After all, I know something of what it’s like.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I do know that two years ago, I went into space, and it wasn’t until I got back that I found out that you were getting married,” Reuenthal said. “It was something of a shock, I can admit. And, of course, we were just friends. I imagine it’s that much harder to learn of what your wife has been up to when you really are married.”

“The two things have nothing to do with each other,” Mittermeyer said.

“No?”

“You don’t have to like her, and you don’t even have to like me anymore,” Mittermeyer said. “But I would appreciate it if you at least gave her the respect she is owed, as a person, and as my wife.”

“A fine speech.”

“She hasn’t done anything to you. If you want to be angry, take it out on me.”

“She’s done something to you, though.”

“And what is that?”

“I think she’s blinded you to the possibility that she is just like every other woman in the world.”

“Of all people, I think your opinion on the women of the world counts the least.”

“I know them well enough,” Reuenthal said. “Mittermeyer.”

Mittermeyer was angry now, his cheeks flushed, and he looked at Reuenthal with his thick eyebrows drawn down over narrowed eyes. “What, Reuenthal? What do you have to say about my wife? Say it, so that I can get it through my head that you’re not worth being around any more, if you can’t even manage to be polite about the woman I do love.”

“Another fine speech.”

“Give one of your own.”

Reuenthal raised an eyebrow. “Oh? You want to know what I think about you and love?”

“Sure.”

“I think she’s tricked you into believing that you have the capacity for it. Maybe she’s using you, maybe she’s glad to have a husband who’s away eleven months out of the year; I don’t know. She’s pretty— I’ll give you that— I can understand you see that in her, at least, but what is there under the surface?” He shrugged, keeping his face still. “Evangeline is full of the same rot—”

At this point, Mittermeyer stood up, knocking his barstool back, and grabbed the collar of Reuenthal’s shirt, pulling him forward and breathing heavily. “I told you to keep her name out of your mouth.”

“And then you told me to talk, so which is it?” Reuenthal smirked a little. He had forgotten what it was like to have Mittermeyer’s hands on him, have his face so close to his own, and it was thrilling. Even though Mittermeyer was ferociously angry at him, if this was the best he could get, if he had to goad Mittermeyer into it, he would take it.

“Take it outside before I call the MPs,” the bartender said, coming over. His voice was bored, but clearly serious. Mittermeyer dropped Reuenthal as though he had been burned, and Reuenthal stood in one smooth motion.

“Fine,” Reuenthal said. He turned on his heel and headed out of the bar, assuming that Mittermeyer would follow him, which he did. 

Reuenthal exited the building that they were in, heading out into the actual outdoors, not into one of the connective tunnels. He wasn’t wearing his protective gear, and the cold bit into him like teeth immediately, snowflakes like shards of ice whipping into his face. He walked on the plowed path a little way, then found a place where tank treads had flattened the snow enough to create a walking path out of the protective light circle of the base. He could see Mittermeyer’s shadow lapping at his feet as he walked, so even in the snow-muted silence of the night, without looking back, he knew that Mittermeyer was following him.

By the time that he had gotten far enough away from the base that he was relatively sure that they would not be observed or overheard, Reuenthal was the kind of cold where he could barely feel the surface of his skin. His daily-wear uniform was hardly any protection against the temperatures deep in the negatives. When he turned around to look at Mittermeyer, the light from the base made him appear only in stark silhouette.

“Well?” Reuenthal asked, spreading out his arms, feeling the wind send snow up his sleeves.

“What is your problem?” Mittermeyer yelled, though with the snow eating all the sound around them, it was hardly louder to Reuenthal’s ears than a speaking voice.

“My problem?” Reuenthal asked. “You were the one who wanted to hit me. You might as well take this opportunity!”

“Why do you have to say anything about Eva? Just leave her alone.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I—“

“You what? You’ll kill me?” Reuenthal’s tone was as mocking as he could make it. He wanted Mittermeyer to hit him, so badly that he burned with it.

“I will.”

“Then you should. Every awful thing you could imagine me thinking about your precious Eva, I certainly already have. And it’s only a matter of time before I say them as well.”

Maybe Mittermeyer decided that was enough provocation, or that he didn’t want Reuenthal to start actually going down the list of terrible things that he had thought over the past year and a half about Evangeline, but after a second of silence, he lunged at Reuenthal, sending snow flying up from under his heels as he moved forward, faster than one might expect from his small and sturdy frame. 

Mittermeyer swung a punch at Reuenthal, who dodged it just enough that it grazed his shoulder rather than actually landing. Reuenthal struck back, aiming for Mittermeyer’s jaw, but Mittermeyer ducked underneath Reuenthal’s arm, and he missed completely. He didn’t mind.

Reuenthal was sliding forward in the snow a little now, and Mittermeyer elbowed Reuenthal in the side, which was sure to leave a bruise. Reuenthal managed to grab Mittermeyer’s arm, though, and pulled, hard, sending them both tumbling into the snow. 

They both scrambled for purchase, tumbling over each other, a tangled mess of limbs and snow in which Reuenthal couldn’t tell up from down, or whether he was hitting or being hit. The snow caked his back, but Mittermeyer was burning hot to the touch. Reuenthal was aflame. Sweat rose to his forehead from the exertion, then froze on his face.

He was breathing heavily, and felt the ache of bruises all over when their frantic tussle slowed enough that Reuenthal could reach up and grab a fistful of snowy hair at the nape of Mittermeyer’s neck. Mittermeyer’s body was pressed onto his, above him, his knee digging into Reuenthal’s stomach, his hands on Reuenthal’s shoulders. His breathing was also rough and ragged, and Reuenthal had bloodied Mittermeyer's nose, the blood dripping down his face and freezing there above his upper lip. They stared at each other for a second, silently, unmoving.

All rational thought had left Reuenthal’s brain long before this point, and he didn’t think he could have put into words anything that he was feeling, either. All he knew was that he probably wasn’t going to get any other moment like this, so he took it. He dragged Mittermeyer’s head down towards his own, pressing their mouths together, tasting Mittermeyer’s blood in his mouth.

The soft sound that Mittermeyer made was almost inaudible, but the way that the tension changed in his body, pressing more firmly onto Reuenthal, and the way that he opened his mouth to kiss said plenty. Reuenthal’s other hand dug into Mittermeyer’s waist, and Mittermeyer’s hands moved from Reuenthal’s shoulders to his face, hot on Reuenthal’s cheeks. Mittermeyer’s knee slipped off of Reuenthal’s stomach, and landed heavily in the snow, so that he was straddling Reuenthal, then pressing their hips together.

After a few seconds, Reuenthal tugged on Mittermeyer’s hair to get him off. “We’re going to get frostbite if we stay out here,” he managed to say.

Mittermeyer made a choked laugh, or something— Reuenthal couldn’t really tell— and rolled off of him, ending up on his back in the snow. Reuenthal missed the warmth of his body immediately. He stood and offered Mittermeyer a hand, then hoisted him back to his feet. They headed back towards the base, brushing snow off themselves as they went, chased by the cold wind.

* * *

_ January 485 IC, Odin _

The practicalities of arriving back on Odin needed to be taken care of before anything else. Reuenthal’s time on Kapche-Lanka had been shorter than he, and everyone else, had expected, so he was rather regretting the fact that he had broken his lease and needed to find a new apartment. He theoretically could have stayed with Yang during this time, but he didn’t even tell Yang that he was back on Odin until he had gotten a new place, which took several days.

He didn’t see Mittermeyer after the point that the two of them had walked off the crew transport together. As they approached the exit of the spaceport building, Mittermeyer had said, “Eva’s going to be waiting for me,” which had made Reuenthal frown and hang back, having no desire to watch their reunion. He hadn’t heard from Mittermeyer again, either, but that didn’t particularly concern him. He assumed that Mittermeyer would speak to him eventually. After all, they had parted on terms that Reuenthal, at least, was satisfied with. He would still prefer that Mittermeyer didn’t have a wife at all, but at this point, he was going to have to live with it in one way or another. He had even managed to grudgingly promise that he really wouldn’t say anything else about her, which was a concession that he could make. 

So, it was a while before he texted Yang.

> I’m back on Odin.

> Would you care to get dinner with me and see my new apartment?

< dinner? sure

< but i’d prefer to have it at my place

< we can get takeout

> Oh?

> Too lazy to make the trip all the way into the capital on a school night?

< maybe

< but really

< if i’m going to be receiving bad news

< i would prefer to do it in the comfort of my own home

> Bad news?

< i have always been on speaking terms with mittermeyer, you know

< when he starts suddenly acting cagey

< i am capable of making my own deductions

< anyway, yes i will have dinner with you, but come to my place

Reuenthal’s frown had been slowly deepening as every message from Yang arrived on his phone. He couldn’t tell really what Yang was feeling. His tone wasn’t exactly hostile, but that was also something that was hard to parse over text. Reuenthal wasn’t sure what he was even going to say to Yang, so it was with an unusual feeling of apprehension that he took the train to Yang’s boardinghouse later that night.

He wore his uniform (though he couldn’t have explained the instinct that caused him to do so) and brought a bottle of wine with him, along with the mug that he had found on Kapche-Lanka (which had miraculously survived the entire trip in Reuenthal’s bag in one piece). He let himself into the unlocked front door of the boardinghouse, then made his way upstairs to Yang’s apartment. He knocked on the door, received no response, then tried the handle. The door swung open.

“Leigh?” he called. Again, there was no response, so Reuenthal walked inside. The apartment was the same general mess that it always was, Reuenthal saw as he stuck his head into all of the rooms to see if Yang was around. He wasn’t, so Reuenthal took a few minutes to gather up some of the outright garbage that was on the floor and coffee table, making the room about twenty percent neater. He also put all the dirty clothes that Yang had left strewn around into his laundry basket. There was a part of Reuenthal that wondered if Yang was actively trying to torture him by having him come to his dirty house to visit, but since Yang just lived like this, and Reuenthal had been to his apartment many times in the past, that probably wasn’t the case.

He sat on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table while he waited for Yang to return, staring into the fire. When Reuenthal heard the click of the door handle, he stood. 

Yang was walking in, and hadn’t yet noticed Reuenthal. He was shaking snow off his hat, and peeling off his gloves, a plastic bag full of their takeout dinner hooked over his elbow.

“Wen-li,” Reuenthal said, which startled Yang. He jumped a little, and the door slammed shut behind him, which made him jump again.

Reuenthal smiled.

“I was going to text you that I had left the door open,” Yang said. “But then I realized I left my phone in my bedroom. Glad you figured it out.”

“It’s always good to check if a door is open before assuming it’s locked,” Reuenthal said. 

Yang smiled a little. “Yeah.” He handed Reuenthal the bag of food. “I assume there’s no objection to chicken parmesan?”

“None at all,” Reuenthal said. “I brought some wine.”

“Oh, good, I’m sure all of this will be slightly more pleasant when I’m drunk,” Yang said as he shrugged off his coat. He tossed it on the seat of his desk chair and wandered further into the room to peer out the foggy window. While Yang’s back was turned, Reuenthal hung his coat up on the hook.

Yang continued to stare silently out the window while Reuenthal found the wine glasses, then poured them both drinks. He came over to stand next to Yang, who took the glass gratefully, but didn’t drink for a second. He reached his hand up and touched the new stripe on the shoulder of Reuenthal’s uniform, very gently. “See, Captain, I told you that the galaxy would return to spinning on the correct axis eventually.” 

“I have to wonder what you mean by correct,” Reuenthal said.

“Mmm,” Yang said, which didn’t mean anything. He tilted his wine glass around a little, then raised it to the light. “To staying warm and alive,” he said.

“Prosit.”

They drank. The wine was good; Reuenthal had not been cheap when he picked it out, and it settled warmly in his stomach. Neither of them said anything for a while, watching the snow drift down outside. Reuenthal hated the fact that the window was so foggy, because it meant that, rather than being able to see Yang’s reflection in the window, all he could see was a vague dark smudge. He wanted to observe his expression, but didn’t want to stare at him openly, not right now. 

After Yang drank about half his glass, he said, “We should eat, or the food will get cold.” They sat down at Yang’s rickety table across from each other, and Yang served them both generous portions of pasta and chicken. 

“How was your winter solstice?” Reuenthal asked.

“Fine,” Yang said. “I spent it with the Mariendorfs, and then Magdalena demanded I visit her so that she could weep onto my shoulder for about forty minutes.”

“Thrilling.”

“It was. And I saw Admiral Merkatz at a New Year’s party at Neue Sanssouci,” Yang said. “I believe he’s forgiven me for any of my indiscretions.”

“It would be hard not to, after Iserlohn.”

“Well,” Yang said, then shrugged. “It was good to see him. His granddaughter is very cute.”

“What were you invited to a party at Neue Sanssouci for? Baroness Westpfale hasn’t been allowed back there yet, has she?”

Yang laughed. “No, certainly not. It was a fleet function, but I’m not sure who put my name on the invite list. Probably there’s somebody in the Kaiser’s employ whose job it is just to remember what members of the fleet the Kaiser finds tolerable, who wouldn’t look too out of place at a party, and who are in the capital. I at least fit two of those three requirements,” Yang said, voice very dry.

Reuenthal chuckled. “I trust that you didn’t embarrass yourself too badly.”

“No, it was very boring.” He smiled. “It’s a little awkward being the most junior person in the room, and yet only knowing the Kaiser, Duke Braunschweig, Fleet Admiral Muckenburger, and Admiral Merkatz. Not that the duke and Muckenburger like me that much, but I am capable of holding a conversation with them, if I need to.”

“You know, you could solve that problem easily enough.” Reuenthal casually twirled his wine glass around. “You could be promoted.”

“You want me to be a captain so badly,” Yang said. “You should enjoy your own status without worrying so much about mine.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Reuenthal said. He did stare at Yang now, openly, and Yang just sighed and looked at his plate. Reuenthal changed the topic slightly. “I met your friend, Commander Oberstein, by the way.”

“I know. He told me that he spoke to you.”

“Oh?”

“What did you think of him? Mittermeyer doesn’t like him much.”

Reuenthal’s lip curled a little, involuntarily, and Yang raised an eyebrow at that. They had been avoiding the topic of Mittermeyer thus far— Reuenthal was a little surprised he had brought him up, but the look of distaste had not been about that. “I didn’t like him much, but he was right that we have some things in common.”

Yang sighed again. “I think he’s fine. I don’t know why everyone else disagrees with me on that.”

“By your nature, you are remarkably non-judgemental. I am not.”

Yang shook his head. “And what did you learn you have in common with him?”

“A certain measure of loyalty towards you,” Reuenthal said. Yang looked studiously at his wine glass, which was empty. Reuenthal took it from him and refilled it.

“I see,” Yang said.

“And a desire to ensure that you succeed.”

Yang picked up his wine glass. “I suppose neither of you really needed the other’s encouragement to push me about rank,” Yang said. He held his wine glass such that it caught the light of the fire, sending red-on-red illuminations across his arm and hand, spilling down onto the table. “But I assume he didn’t mention my reasons for hesitating.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“To gain power… It’s a complicated prospect.”

“Explain it to me.”

Yang looked up at him, meeting his eyes, which seemed like a rare treat in this conversation. Yang’s smile was small. Soft. “If you like.” He was silent for a second, still holding his wine glass up to the light. “What I told Oberstein, when he asked me why I was hesitating— I said that to gain power here, within this system, it would require using these tools of injustice. To have power is to stand on top of the past. And the past of the Goldenbaum dynasty— it taints any power that they could grant me.”

“That’s what you told Oberstein,” Reuenthal said. “But is it what you would tell me?” 

Yang took a sip of his wine. “No.”

“Then what other hesitations do you have?” Reuenthal asked. 

Yang was looking away again, at the fire. “Relationships of power are also relationships of trust,” Yang said. “Or, at least, they should be.”

“What do you mean?”

Yang was silent for a moment before answering. “To give someone power over yourself is to trust them not to hurt you, or, at least, if you must be hurt, to use you in service of some sort of shared goal.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Power without that kind of trust is violence.”

“I don’t understand what that has to do with your rank.”

“Everything,” Yang said. He shook his head. “For one thing— there’s no reason for anyone who became my subordinate to trust me.”

“I think there is.”

He shook his head again. “I don’t mean— I know I could prove that I’m competent. That’s not it. That’s part of it, earning people’s trust, but any goals I have, they’re not necessarily the same goals as those who would be under me. It would be an abuse of power, lying to them about trusting me.”

“Wen-li, I’ve just spent enough time with the high command at Kapche-Lanka to know that the vast majority of officers do not spare a single thought for that line of reasoning.” His tone was somewhat poisonous, thinking of Ovelesser’s intent to leave Mittermeyer to die, for no reason whatsoever. “If there’s one thing that I know to be true about you, it’s that if you had men under your direct command, your goal would be to keep them alive, as much as possible.” Reuenthal shook his head, surprised by his own momentary passion. He leaned back in his seat.

Yang smiled a little bit. “Perhaps. Still.”

“That’s not a good reason.”

“And in the end, it’s the same thing I did say to Oberstein. The power would be vested in me by the Goldenbaum dynasty, to be their tool. The army is a manifestation of the state’s power, and it can be used against its own people just as easily as it can be used against the enemy. More, even. And those people, who I would have power over by virtue of having a gun in my hand— they had no say in that.”

“If people had a say in whether a gun is pointed at them or not, guns would be pretty useless,” Reuenthal said, voice dry. “I don’t think this is a good argument.”

“I don’t think that there is an argument that you would find convincing. Oberstein, either.”

“Then why did you pick this one to give to me?”

“I don’t know,” Yang said, though he clearly did. “Because it’s just the way you look at the world.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oberstein is interested in the injustices of the past, so I told him about that. You….” He trailed off for a second. “You’re interested in power.”

Reuenthal was silent, and raised his eyebrows, looking very deliberately at Yang, who was now awkwardly pulling at the hair on the back of his head, clearly made somewhat uncomfortable by the conversation topic, even though he was the one who had brought it up. Reuenthal wanted to know what he was thinking. “In what way?” Reuenthal finally asked.

“I don’t know,” Yang said. He looked away, at anything but Reuenthal. “It’s just the way you relate to people.”

“Does that bother you?”

“No,” Yang said. He sighed. “No.”

“Oh?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do.”

“It’s like I said— I— you trust me.”

“And you think that you have power over me?” Reuenthal asked.

Yang closed his eyes and tilted his head back. “Oskar.”

“What?”

“You gave it to me,” Yang finally said. “Any power that I have.”

Reuenthal was silent, waiting to see if Yang would say something else. He did, after a long moment, filling the silence, given space in which to explain himself. Reuenthal listened attentively, watching Yang’s neck, his head still tilted far back.

“The trust that you have in me,” Yang said. “I—” He shook his head a little, as though he was trying to clear out his thoughts. “It’s… important… to me. And I wouldn’t want to ruin that.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t?” Yang asked, and now Reuenthal detected a hint of bitterness in his voice. “I wish I could be so sure.”

“What do you think you’re capable of doing that would make me not trust you?”

“I can think of many things,” Yang said after a second. There was silence between them for a moment.

“If you think that I’ve given you power over me, don’t you think you should use it?” It was a loaded question, and Reuenthal realized that he was holding his wine glass very, very tightly. He relaxed, deliberately. 

Yang brought his head back level to look at him, then stood, apparently done eating. He took his wine glass with him as he went to sit on the couch, in front of the crackling fire. After a second, Reuenthal joined him, though they weren’t sitting close enough to touch. He brought the wine bottle, now half empty, as well as his own glass. 

“Tell me about Kapche-Lanka,” Yang said. It was a command, but like any command that Yang gave, Reuenthal knew that he could refuse it.

“What do you want to know?”

Yang stared into the fire. “Just… tell me about it,” Yang said. 

“It’s a miserable place,” he said after a second. “You would hate it there.”

Yang let out a huff of laughter. “I’m sure.”

“It’s so cold there, the moisture from.your breath freezes around your nose. And the air is poisonous. Too much carbon dioxide. You feel like you’re trapped in an enclosed space, even when you’re out in the open, with nothing but snow as far as you can see, and further. It’s so… empty.” He shook his head. “Do you know anything about what the operation was like?”

“A little. But I’d like to hear you tell it.”

So Reuenthal told him about it, the first mission, to capture the base, being in command and killing for the first time, how easy it had been to take the place, the receiving Mittermeyer’s distress call, then the long journey to rescue him, and the grueling fight to hold the base.

“Mittermeyer said he was glad to have you there,” Yang said, interrupting Reuenthal for the first time. 

“He thinks he would have died without me, but I don’t think that’s true.” He paused for a second. Yang had told him to tell him about it, “I was glad to be there, though,” Reuenthal said. “I had forgotten what it was like to…” He trailed off.

“Yeah,” Yang said. “I get it.” There was a moment of silence between them. “Then what happened?”

“I was recalled to central command, and yelled at,” Reuenthal said. “I think I took some pages out of your book.”

“Am I being a good influence or a bad one?”

“I have no idea,” Reuenthal said. “I think that would depend on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you. I don’t care what your COs think.”

Reuenthal chuckled a little. “A good one, then.”

“All right.”

“I got a promotion for heroism.”

“At least it’s a deserved one.”

“If you say so.”

“I would have done the same thing, if I were in your place.”

“The exact same?”

“Oh, probably not. But I would have gone to help.”

“Yeah.” Reuenthal stared into the fire. “You would have never forgiven me if I hadn’t gone.”

“And, what, left Mittermeyer to his fate?”

“Yeah.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I thought about it.”

“The wonderful and terrible thing about thoughts,” Yang said, “is that, generally speaking, they can’t change the world until you act on them.”

“Perhaps.” 

Yang made a kind of noncommittal sound, then after a beat, said, “You haven’t told me what I want to hear.”

Reuenthal refilled Yang’s wine glass. “You seem to already have some idea of what I might say.”

Yang’s voice was light. “Tell me what happened between you and Mittermeyer.” It was a command, again. Yang was exercising the power that he did have, and Reuenthal complied.

“He invited me out to drink, to celebrate my promotion,” he began. “Or, at least that was what he said. I didn’t want to go.”

“But you did.”

“I did.”

“And then?”

“I spent a lot of time being extremely rude to him,” Reuenthal said. “Did he tell you that?”

“No.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

Reuenthal shrugged. “Stupid reasons. I was still angry at him. I wanted to make him angry at me.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah.” Reuenthal finished his own drink. “We had a fight, almost in the bar, but then we went outside.”

“Who won?”

“Mittermeyer.”

Yang waited silently for Reuenthal to continue.

“And then we had sex,” Reuenthal said, voice very flat and neutral.

“I figured.”

“Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“It’s better than you lying, or just not telling me,” Yang said with a shrug. He sounded tired, rather than upset, but he wasn’t looking at Reuenthal as he took a sip of his wine. “Though I suppose it doesn’t really matter.”

“It doesn’t?”

“What do you want, Oskar?” He turned towards him then. “What are you here for?”

“I don’t know.” And that was the most honest thing he could have said. What did he want? He hated the feeling of things falling out of his hands. He had hated letting go of Mittermeyer, and he would hate for Yang to push him away over this. “What do you want?”

Yang sighed, then looked away. His voice was even tireder now. “It’s not like I couldn’t have predicted this would happen. I told you before that I would like you to be happy. That’s still true.” He had a bit of a wry laugh. “I’m not going to speak one way and act another, at the very least.”

“Order me to not see him again.”

“Why would I do that?” Yang asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, Oskar…”

“Wen-li.”

“Can I say something?”

“Please.”

“Let me ask you this right out, then. Are we finished?”

“It seems strange that you’re asking me that question. It seems like it’s you who would make that choice.”

Yang shook his head. He seemed to be fumbling for what to say, rubbing his head again. “Mittermeyer is still married.”

“Did you think I’d somehow forgotten that fact?” Reuenthal’s voice was slightly more vicious than he had intended.

Yang just glanced at him. “No.”

“Then why are you reminding me?”

“Because I’m trying to figure out… Nevermind.”

“What?”

“He has commitments,” Yang said. “Which, well, Mittermeyer has a lot of complicated thoughts about how to honor those commitments, I’m sure, but what I mean is…” He seemed frustrated, but mostly with himself. “I’m just saying that he’s not going to be… always around. I assume.”

“Probably,” Reuenthal said, through gritted teeth.

“And I don’t know. Maybe you want… There’s an appeal to what he has with Evangeline.”

“I’m not going to marry a woman,” Reuenthal said, surprised that Yang was suggesting it out of the blue. He would have probably been angry, if he hadn’t been so startled.

Yang rubbed his face. “No, that’s not what I mean. I mean just… the rest of it.” Reuenthal was silent. “I’m not doing a very good job here, am I?”

“It’s fine.”

Yang was looking down at his hands. “I mean to have a home, and a life that you can share with someone else. It would be nice.”

Reuenthal frowned and said nothing.

“But that’s not— it’s not possible. Not from Mittermeyer, not from me.” He sounded miserable. “But, you know, there’s whatever’s left if you can’t have that.”

“I don’t think I understand what you’re saying.”

Yang closed his eyes. “What I’m saying, I guess, is that I don’t care what you do with Mittermeyer, if it makes you happy. I’ll ignore it, or I’ll be happy for you, or whatever you want.”

“Should I thank you?”

“Stop it,” Yang said. “Let me finish.” He took a breath. “And if what Mittermeyer can give you isn’t… enough…” He trailed off and shrugged, clearly very unhappy.

There was silence, then, “I can’t tell what you want, Wen-li.”

Yang shrugged and said nothing.

“Do you want to be with me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Yang asked.

“No.”

He still wasn’t looking at Reuenthal. “Yes, then,” he said. “Of course. Yes. But not— not if you would rather have… something else. Not if you’d be happier.”

“What gave you the impression that I would be happier without you?”

“I don’t know,” Yang said. His whole posture was very stiff, curled up on the couch with his knees to his chest, his arms wrapped around his knees. He had put down his wine glass on the coffee table and was staring into the fire.

Reuenthal reached towards him, hesitated, unsure of where to put his hand, and ended up somewhat awkwardly stroking down the top of Yang’s head, fingers tangling in his thick, black hair. Yang let out a little rush of breath.

“I wouldn’t be happier to not have you,” Reuenthal said.

Yang nodded, silently, and Reuenthal stroked some of his hair behind his ear, quiet for a moment.

“I brought you something,” Reuenthal said after a second.

Yang turned to look at him, a very odd expression on his face. “What?”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Reuenthal said. “It’s just something I liberated from Kapche-Lanka.” He was trying to lighten the mood.

Yang caught his tone and let him. “Liberated, I’m sure, is a very polite euphemism.”

“Are you going to report me for looting?” Reuenthal asked. Yang managed a chuckle.

“What is it?”

Reuenthal reached behind the couch and fished around in the bag he had brought the wine in for the mug. It wasn’t wrapped or anything, so he just handed it to Yang.

“I went to El Facil and all I got was this lousy mug,” Yang read aloud, voice very flat.

“You don’t like it?” Reuenthal asked. “I figured you should have a souvenir.”

“I went to El Facil and all I got was accused of treason,” Yang said. 

“To be fair on that count,” Reuenthal said. “You definitely did do something resembling treason.”

Yang stared at the mug in his hands, turning it around and around for a moment, then laughed a little. “Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome. I’m amazed it survived the journey. I had to retrieve it from a tank that was hit by rocket fire, you know.”

“The universe really was conspiring to help me have this piece of dishware,” Yang said. “I’ll have to be sure not to drop it.”

Reuenthal reached over and took the mug back out of Yang’s hands, placing it on the coffee table next to the wine bottle. “Certainly.”

Yang leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes, relaxing his posture somewhat, letting his legs fold down to the side rather than being up near his chest. Open. Vulnerable, maybe. Reuenthal just looked at him for a moment, then put his hand on Yang’s thigh, leaning towards him. 

“Well?” Reuenthal asked.

Without opening his eyes, and with a slightly grumpy tone in his voice, Yang said, “You know, Oskar, another reason why I don’t spend all my time telling you what to do is that I’m too lazy to bother.”

“You wound me,” Reuenthal said, but he reached his other hand towards Yang’s cheek. Yang smiled, a little wanly, and did not seem surprised when Reuenthal leaned in to kiss him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are at the end of this little side story haha. I hope that you have enjoyed reading it!
> 
> It’s true that no one has actually solved any of their problems; they have just transformed into different looking problems. Reuenthal is... kinda an asshole... but I cannot help but like him anyway. Whatever that says about me, idk. 
> 
> I feel like. Everyone is sorta trying to be sincere, but it’s being expressed in very different ways, and also those ways are somewhat bad, for everyone involved. Worst expression of his feelings award definitely goes to Reuenthal. Probably best goes to Yang, even if he does do it in a weird, self-sacrificing way and also frame the whole conversation in a long diversion talking about power, which. Well. You know.
> 
> Anyway, we’re done with love triangle drama for a little while— the status quo will remain Mittermeyer and Reuenthal are very much hooking up, Mittermeyer feels bad about cheating on his wife and also kinda guilty about Yang, Yang studiously ignores the fact that this is happening, and Reuenthal is weird and possessive about it. It’s not a great situation, but it’s at least slightly stable, until something knocks it out of balance, anyway. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of other, different drama forthcoming lol.
> 
> I suspect the  title  might amuse one person here (aside from Lydia, who suggested it to me). 
> 
> See you next time for chapter 17 of Servants of the Pharaoh! Thank you to Lydia, Em, and Alexis for all taking a look at this chapter. You can find me on tumblr @ javert and on twitter as @ natsinator . My original fiction can be read at bit.ly/arcadispark (you should read that one if you’re missing the hot girl summer 2020 might have been :p ) and bit.ly/shadowofheaven


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